KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban Minister of Higher Education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem, said that a new curriculum for universities has been developed and submitted to the regime’s Council of Ministers for approval.
During a conference in Kabul on Tuesday, July 23, the Taliban minister said that his ministry has been working on the new curriculum for the past two years. He noted that some of the previous subjects have been replaced with new ones designed to better meet the needs of Afghan society.
“We have spent two years developing this curriculum, which has now been submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval. The changes are substantial, with previous subjects removed and a new focus on addressing the current needs of society,” he said.
The Taliban Minister of Higher Education, however, did not provide further details about the curriculum changes or clarify which subjects have been removed or added.
Since their return to power, transforming Afghanistan’s education system has been a central focus for the Taliban. The regime has banned girls from attending schools beyond sixth grade, enforced gender segregation and a new dress code at public universities, and pledged to overhaul the educational curriculum to propagate its ideology among younger generations.
The Taliban considers the previous curriculum to be a continuation of the alleged “cultural invasion by Western countries,” which they believe threatens the interests and policies of their regime.
Despite heavy international investment, the country’s public education system remained unresponsive to the needs of a modern and rapidly changing world even under the republic government. However, with the Taliban’s return to power, there are worries that public schools and universities could be turned into factories for brainwashing younger generation.
For the past two years, the Taliban authorities have reportedly directed many public and private institutions across Afghanistan to replace contemporary subjects with religious ones. Subjects such as English, computer science, mathematics, science, and social studies—once considered core under the republic government’s education system—have been removed from the curricula of many institutions, leaving only religious subjects.
In addition to revamping the curriculum in public schools and universities, the Taliban are also establishing a vast network of religious schools, or madrasas, with some specifically aimed at training jihadi fighters.
Last year, the Taliban’s Ministry of Education announced that their leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, had ordered the construction of hundreds of new religious schools across all provinces and the creation of 100,000 new teaching positions for these institutions.
