The United Nations cultural agency reported that approximately 2.4 million girls in Afghanistan are prevented from attending secondary school, marking an increase of 200,000 from the previous year’s assessment. UNESCO cautioned that this number could grow to nearly four million by 2030 without policy changes.
Afghanistan stands as the sole nation globally to systematically prevent girls and women from accessing secondary education and universities. The restrictions began in March 2022 when secondary schools were closed to female students, followed by a ban on women’s university attendance in December that year. These measures came months after the Taliban resumed control of the country following the conclusion of a two-decade international military presence.
Beyond school closures, the Taliban government implemented additional constraints on women in the education sector, including a prohibition on women teaching boys. This restriction has created staffing shortages that the UN estimates could exceed 11,000 qualified female educators by 2030, leaving boys’ classrooms staffed by undertrained male instructors. The UN has characterized these combined policies as constituting “gender apartheid.”
Education challenges in Afghanistan extend beyond the gender-based restrictions. The system faces widespread infrastructure deficiencies, with nearly half of schools lacking adequate water, sanitation, or heating facilities. Natural disasters have resulted in approximately 1,000 school closures over a five-year period. At the primary education level, more than two million children are not enrolled in classes, and literacy assessments indicate that 90 percent of 10-year-olds cannot read basic texts, contributing to a national literacy rate of 37 percent.
The Taliban administration has dismissed international pressure to reverse its education policies, including appeals from Muslim-majority nations, characterizing the matter as a domestic issue beyond external scrutiny.
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