Taliban continue to create hindrances and obstacles for Afghan boys and girls who want to get education and contribute to an educated Afghanistan. As of recent all girls’ schools in Shindand district of Herat province have been shut down due to growing threats from insurgents. Taliban have distributed threat letters, warning families to avoid sending their girls to schools. School administrations, having no other option, have accepted the instructions given by Taliban for the sake of their own safety and security of school-going girls.
Hundreds of schools mostly in volatile areas of the country remain shut. This is indeed a clear challenge to writ of Afghan government. According to estimates, Taliban’s threats are depriving millions of children from getting education.
Taliban’s anti-education activities should not be surprising. During the Taliban government, all kinds of formal education were banned for boys while girls were imprisoned in their own homes. The restriction produced huge harms to educational activities and caused the literacy rate to go dramatically down in Afghanistan. It will take years for Afghanistan to compensate this loss provided they are allowed to educate their children without fear of any kind of terrorism.
No doubt, Taliban’s such actions were based in their narrow and extreme mindset towards the world. After their government was toppled in 2001, they have intensively tried to prevent Afghans from getting education by acid/gas attacks on students, setting schools at fire and threatening people to keep their children away from education. Taliban’s anti-education activities does not limit to barring boys and specially girls from going to schools but they are also involved in kidnapping, target killing and beheading ofgovernment teachers and officials of education sector.This is causing huge damage to the nascent educational development in the country. Regretfully, government’s position in preventing damages caused by Taliban to the education sector of the country has been quite pathetic.
Although efforts are under way to re-open girls’ schools in Shindand through mediation of tribal elders, the issue in fact is an indicator of broader challenge facingthe education of children specially girls’ education in the country. Closure of schools by Taliban speaks of their growing control and influence in certain districts of Afghanistan. In some parts of Afghanistan, they have even their own parallel administration and shadow provincial and district governors. This poses severe threats to educational gains of Afghanistan after 2014 when all the international combat forces will be out of the country.