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Afghan girls in high school will return to the classroom beginning next week, although the Taliban are requiring them to follow specific conditions, an education official said.
All schools will be reopened to boys and girls beginning March 21, but the Taliban's requirements for the girls include teaching them separately from males, Aziz Ahmad Rayan, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, told Reuters. Also, girls can be instructed only by female teachers, but in the rare case a female teacher cannot be found in a rural area, males will be allowed to teach them.
Afghan girls in grade seven and up have not been allowed to attend school in most of the country since the Taliban took control seven months ago. Women in Afghanistan have been fighting for their rights to be recognized by the Taliban government, with a key issue being women's education.
For months it was not known if the country's new rulers would allow females to get an education. The last time the Taliban ran Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, females were banned from attending schools and from most jobs. However, the Ministry of Education now says no schools in Afghanistan will be closed this year, Reuters reported.
"I feel very powerful. We can show not only [the Taliban] but also the world [that] we never stop, and Afghanistan won't return to previous decades," Farzana, 17, told Reuters as she spoke about returning to school.
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan last year, they promised a more inclusive approach in their governing, compared with how they ruled two decades ago, and said women would be given rights under their leadership. A Taliban spokesperson previously told Fox News there would be no issues with women's education, their work or their rights in the country.
Despite those promises, little progress has been made on education. The Taliban has blamed the delays on a lack of space needed to accommodate the separate teaching of males and females, the Associated Press reported.
"In many provinces, the higher classes [girls' school] are open, but in some places where it is closed, the reasons are economic crisis and the framework, which we need to work on in areas which are overcrowded. And for that we need to establish the new procedure," said Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Zabihullah Mujahid, according to Al Jazeera.
Girls have been allowed to attend secondary school in just five of Afghanistan's provinces. Last year, in the city of Herat, Taliban fighters passed out long scarves and hijabs for girls to wear as they returned to school with other boys. Meanwhile, women who attended universities were required to wear a hijab in class and were taught separately from males.
Update 03/17/22, 2:24 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information and background.
