KABUL — Universities in Kabul were almost empty on the
first day of the Afghan school year on Monday, as professors and students
wrestled with the Taliban's restrictive new rules for the classroom.
اضافة اعلان
The Taliban have promised a softer reign than during their
first stint in power from 1996–2001, when women's freedoms in Afghanistan were
sharply curtailed and they were banned from higher education.
This time the hardline Islamist group have said women will
be allowed to go to private universities under the new regime, but they face
tough restrictions on their clothing and movement.
Women can only attend class if they wear an abaya and a
niqab and are separated from men, the Taliban said.
"Our students don't accept this and we will have to
close the university," said Noor Ali Rahmani, the director of Gharjistan
University in Kabul, on an almost empty campus.
"Our
students wear the hijab, not the niqab," he
added, referring to a head scarf.
The hardline group's education authority issued a lengthy
document on Sunday outlining their measures for the classroom, which also ruled
that men and women should be segregated — or at least divided by a curtain if
there are 15 students or less.
"We said we didn't accept it because it will be
difficult to do," Rahmani told AFP.
"We also said that it is not real Islam, it is not what
the Quran says."
From now on at private colleges and universities, which have
mushroomed since the Taliban's first rule ended, women must only be taught by
other women, or "old men", and use a women-only entrance.
They must also end their lessons five minutes earlier than
men to stop them from mingling outside.
So far, the Taliban has said nothing about public
universities.
'Let's engage'
For some students, however, it was a relief that women would
still be able to attend university at all under a new Taliban regime.
Zuhra Bahman, who runs a scholarship program for women in
Afghanistan, said on social media she had spoken to some of the students.
"They are happy to go back to university, albeit in
hijab," she said.
"Taliban opening universities for women is a key
progress. Let's continue to engage to agree on other rights and freedoms."
Jalil Tadjlil, a spokesman for Ibn-e Sina University in the
capital, said separate entrances had already been created for men and women.
"We didn't have the authority to accept or reject the
decisions that have been imposed," he told AFP, blaming the "ongoing
uncertainty" for the lack of students.
The university posted a picture online of male and female
students separated by a curtain.
Images shared on Facebook by the university's department of
economics and management showed six
women wearing the hijab and 10 male
students with a grey curtain running between them, as a male teacher wrote on a
whiteboard.
'Everything changed'
Usually, campus corridors on the first day of term would be
packed full of students catching up after the summer off.
But on Monday, there was a strikingly low turnout at Kabul's
universities, leaving education leaders wondering just how many young, talented
people have fled the country as part of the "brain drain".
Rahmani said only 10 to 20 percent of the 1,000 students who
enrolled last year came to Gharjistan University on Monday, although there were
no classes timetabled.
He estimated up to 30 percent of the students left
Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control in the middle of August.
"We have to see first if students come," he said.
Reza Ramazan, a computer science teacher at the university
said women students were particularly at risk when travelling to campus.
"It can be dangerous at checkpoints," he said.
"The Taliban can check their phones and computers."
For 28-year-old computer science student Amir Hussein,
"everything changed completely" after the Taliban takeover.
"Many students are not interested anymore in studying
because they don't know what their future will be," he said.
"Most of them want to leave Afghanistan."
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