Lawyers and law students file reports on the Taliban regime

Lawyers and law students file reports on the Taliban regime

Jurist being kept informed of the situation in Afghanistan

There is continuing uncertainty for education in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, as per the reports filed by lawyers and law students in the Jurist.

(Jurist is a legal news and commentary service by a collaborative virtual team of over 50 law students, reporters, editors, commentators, designers and developers. The group belongs to 12 law schools in the US, the UK and India. Established in 1996, Jurist is produced as a public service for the education, training and benefit of its readers and law student staffers).

A correspondent for the Jurist offered his observations on the current uncertainties for education in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. However, for privacy and security reasons, his name was withheld.

The correspondent wrote that the Taliban had made several statements regarding girls' education in the country since they seized power in August. Their spokesperson had said that girls could go to school after the winter vacations from mid-December until the beginning of March.

He mentioned that the Taliban had said that specific procedures to regulate women's education in Afghanistan were being worked upon. But, the correspondent further added that nothing was explained about the procedures, policies, and regulations. Also, there was no clarification on what would happen to the timeframe when girls were out of school and how the gap would be filled.

The reopening of girls' schools should not be difficult for the Taliban. But it seems they have no plan for that, the correspondent cited. He explained that the arguments of the Taliban did not make any sense because girls' schools were separate from boys' schools in the country and in most such schools even the management was run by women.

Certain policies were implemented in the higher education sector by segregating classrooms with partitions, replacing men professors with women and girls were supposed to wear a hijab, he apprised.

Recently, the acting minister of the Taliban for the Ministry of Higher Education met some German officials from Strategic Development Corporation. He requested financial cooperation to help reopen public universities in the country. The minister stated that the closure of public universities was due to the lack of sufficient funds and the issue could be resolved with foreign cooperation.

However, the correspondent revealed that the higher education system in the country dealt with a lot of challenges such as lack of professors (primarily due to emigration and resignations), funds crunch, lack of classrooms (especially if the segregation policy is implemented), and dearth of women professors.