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KABUL: Afghan teenage girls were sent back home when they arrived at schools after a months-long hiatus on Wednesday, as Taliban rulers decided against opening schools to girls above the sixth grade.
Last September, a little over two weeks after seizing control of the Afghan government, the Taliban announced schools would open for boys but gave no indication of when girls might be able to return to class. Last week, Aziz Ahmad Rayan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, said the Taliban would allow girls across Afghanistan to return to classes when high schools opened for a new semester on March 23.
But Rayan told reporters on Wednesday a plan for girls’ secondary and high schools would now be notified at a later date, without specifying when.
“All secondary and high schools for girls should be informed that their studies are suspended until the next notice,” he said. “Girls’ schools will be officially informed when a comprehensive proposal regarding girls’ education is developed based on Shariah (Islamic law) and the Afghan tradition and the instructions of the Islamic Emirate’s leadership are issued.”
However, in a statement shared with reporters, Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban government spokesperson and permanent representative-designate to the UN, said the postponement was only related to a “technical issue” of school uniforms and would be resolved soon.
“There is no issue of banning girls from schools,” he said. “It is only a technical issue of deciding on the form of school uniform for girls. This is the cause of postponement.”
The decision left many girls in tears and risks further alienating the international community which has been pushing Taliban leaders to open schools and give women their right to public space.
“When we went to school this morning, the head teacher told us at the school gate that only younger girls are allowed and that we should go back home,” Nasima, a 17-year-old student at the Tajwar Sultana high school in Kabul, told Arab News.
School administrators also said they had been ready to receive girls.
“We are waiting for orders from the provincial education officials,” Alia Salaar, a school principal in Herat, said. “We are ready to start the studies in all grades.”
The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they banned female education and most employment.
Hamid Karzai, who served as Afghanistan’s president from 2001 to 2014 and remained in the country after the Taliban takeover in August, took to Twitter to say he was in “deep sorrow and concern over the closure of girls’ schools.”
Karzai took office after the previous Taliban administration was ousted by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. It was under his rule that women’s education was restored in the country.
“The former president asks the caretaker government of the Islamic Emirate to allow girls education for a developed and prosperous Afghanistan,” he said. “Don’t let plans of others who want an Afghanistan deprived of education to be implemented.”