Taliban’s Ministry of Education has announced that over 12,000 girls were enrolled in religious seminaries, or madrassas, in the last year across the country.
The Ministry’s senior officials said in a conference Monday that this enrollment was part of the total 36,203 students who were registered in the recent year to study in madrassas.
This comes amid the countrywide ban on girls’ education above sixth grade and participation in the national university entrance exam, officially known as Kankor.
Meanwhile, women remain barred from attending universities.
Besides banning girls’ and women’s education, the Taliban has also imposed severe restrictions on women’s appearances, freedom of movement, and their right to work.
For the millions of school-age girls, the Taliban-run madrassas remain a last resort to receive an education that only teaches Islamic subjects while all forms of the modern secular education that thrived before the Taliban takeover have been barred for girls.
The Taliban continues to close down secular schools or turn them into religious seminaries, giving significant rise to religious seminaries during the group’s two years rule.
Recently, Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhunzada allocated 100,000 teaching posts for private madrassa centers across the country.
