The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on March 11 that approximately 2.4 million Afghan girls are currently unable to attend secondary school, urging the Taliban administration to lift restrictions on female education.
According to UNESCO, this figure has increased by 200,000 compared to last year and could approach 4 million by 2030 if current policies remain unchanged.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world that prohibits women from pursuing secondary and higher education. This is one of many restrictions targeting women that has led the United Nations to accuse the country of practicing “gender apartheid.”
Girls have been barred from secondary school since March 2022, while women have been banned from universities since December of the same year, just months after the Taliban returned to power following the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces after 20 years of occupation.
The Taliban administration has also banned women from teaching boys. The United Nations says this measure has removed qualified teachers from the system, leaving a male teaching workforce that lacks training. UNESCO projects that Afghanistan will face a shortage of more than 11,000 qualified female teachers by 2030.
The United Nations noted that this ban compounds other issues weighing heavily on Afghanistan’s education system and economy.
Many schools are overcrowded and lack basic facilities. Nearly half of schools have no water, toilets, or heating. Natural disasters have forced about 1,000 schools to close over the past five years.
At the primary level, more than 2 million children are not attending classes. Ninety percent of 10-year-olds cannot read a simple sentence, dragging the national literacy rate down to 37%.
The Taliban administration has rejected international calls—including from many Islamic governments—to lift the ban on female education, dismissing it as an internal matter.
