INTERNATIONAL DAY OF EDUCATION

Afghanistan: 1.4 Million Girls Still Banned from School by De Facto Authorities

Three years after the de facto authorities took power, Afghanistan stands out as the only country in the world where secondary and higher education is strictly forbidden to girls and women. According to new UNESCO data published on Thursday, 1.4 million Afghan girls have been deliberately deprived of schooling. Access to primary education has also fallen sharply, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school.

Today, Afghanistan is the only country in the world to prohibit access to education for girls over the age of 12 and for women. This situation must concern us all. The right to education cannot be negotiated or compromised. The international community must remain fully mobilized to obtain the unconditional reopening of schools and universities to Afghan girls and women.

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Audrey Azoulay – UNESCO Director-General

“Three years to the day after the fall of Kabul, UNESCO publishes new data that testifies to the gravity of the educational situation in Afghanistan. As a result of bans imposed by the de facto authorities, at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since 2021. This represents an increase of 300,000 since the previous count carried out by UNESCO in April 2023 – with more girls reaching the age limit of 12 every year.”

If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls. In just three years, the de facto authorities have almost wiped out two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan, and the future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy.

An equally strong impact on primary education

Although girls’ education is still permitted under the age of 12, the number of pupils enrolled in primary education has also fallen drastically since 2021. According to new UNESCO data, Afghanistan had only 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022, compared with 6.8 million in 2019.

This drop in primary school enrollment is the result of the de facto authorities’ decision to prohibit female teachers from teaching boys, exacerbating the teacher shortage. It can also be explained by parents’ lack of incentive to send their children to school in an increasingly difficult socio-economic context. UNESCO is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive dropout rate, which could lead to a rise in child labor and early marriage.

The figures are also very concerning in higher education, with a decrease of 53% in the number of students enrolled in universities since 2021. As a result, the country will rapidly face a shortage of graduates trained for the most highly skilled jobs, which will only exacerbate development problems.