Kabul (Times Of Ocean)- In Afghanistan, the Taliban administration has announced that girls’ high schools will be closed, hours after they reopened for the first time in nearly seven months.
Taliban backtracking means that female students above the sixth grade cannot attend school.
According to government-run Bakhtar News Agency, a Ministry of Education notice said that girls’ schools would be closed until a plan was drafted in accordance with Islamic law and Afghan culture.
“We inform all girls high schools and those schools that are having female students above class six that they are off until the next order,” said the notice.
“Yes, it is true,” Taliban spokesman Inamullah Samangani told AFP when asked if girls had been sent home.
He did not immediately explain the reason, while a spokesman for the education ministry said: “We are not allowed to comment on this.”
“It’s very disappointing that girls, who were waiting for this day, made to return from school. It shows that Taliban are not reliable and cannot fulfill their promises,” Shukria Barakzai, an Afghan politician and journalist based in London, said.
“It means that secondary and high schools are banned for girls. Even primary schools are not open across the country. Most of the provinces do not have girls’ primary schools,” Barakzai told Al Jazeera from London.
“It shows that the Taliban is exactly the same as before – they are against girls’ education.”
There is a shortage of teachers in Afghanistan – with many of them fled the country as the militia groups Taliban swept to power after the West-backed government of Ashraf Ghani collapsed.