Kabul: Almost everywhere in Afghanistan high school girls are sitting at home, forbidden to attend class Taliban Rulers but there is one major exception.
For weeks in the girls of the Western Province Herat High school classrooms are back – the fruit of a unique, concerted effort by teachers and parents to allow local Taliban administrators to reopen them.
Taliban officials did not approve a formal reopening after a lobbying campaign, but that didn’t stop them even as teachers and parents started classes on their own in early October.
“Parents, students and teachers joined hands to make this happen,” said Mohd Sabar Meshali, head of the Herat Teachers’ Union who helped organize the campaign. “It is the only place where community activists and teachers risked living and talking with the Taliban.”
The teachers kept pressurizing. About 40 female headmasters, including Bashirtkah, met senior Taliban education officials in September to address their main concerns.
“We assured them that classes are segregated, there are only female teachers, and girls wear proper hijabs,” Bashiratkhah said. “We don’t need to change anything. We are Muslims and we already believe everything Islam requires.”
By October, teachers realized they had the Taliban’s tacit agreement not to stand in the way. Teachers began promoting on Facebook pages and messaging app channels that girls’ high schools would reopen on October 3. Parents formed a telephone chain to broadcast the news, and students told classmates.
Mastoura, who has two daughters in class I and VIII studying in Tajrobai, called other parents, urging them to bring their girls to school. Some were concerned that the Taliban would harass the girls or that terrorists might launch an attack. mastoura And other women still take their daughters to school every day.
“We had concerns, and we still have,” said Mastoura, who uses a name similar to that of many Afghans. “But daughters must get education. Without education, your life is at a standstill. ,
Fadih Ismailzadeh, 14, in the ninth grade, said she cried with joy at the news. “We had lost all hope that schools would reopen,” she said.
When the doors opened in Tajrobai, not all the students were visible. But as parents became more confident, classes filled up after a few days, Bashiratkha said. There are about 3,900 students in classes 1-12.
Recently, girls in a 10th grade chemistry class took notes as a teacher explained the elements that make up water. Queues of younger students ran through the hall to the school courtyard.
Shahabuddin Saqeb, the Taliban education director for Herat province, insisted the group had no problem with girls going to school.
“We openly tell everyone that they should come to school,” he told the Associated Press. “Schools are open without any problem. We have never issued any official order stating that girls of high school age should not go to school.”
Herat is the only place where girls’ high schools have opened in the entire province, although schools have also reopened in some isolated districts of northern Afghanistan, including the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Meshal pointed to changes within the Taliban, saying some factions are more open. “They understand that people will protest on the subject of education.”
He said the Taliban are not corrupt, unlike the ousted, internationally backed government.
“With the previous government, if we proposed something for the betterment of schools, they would throw the idea in the dustbin because they could not benefit from it,” he said.
“The Taliban spent all their time fighting in the mountains. They don’t know about administration. So when we meet them, we try to give them advice and after the conversation, they start moving around,” he said.
Yet teachers are struggling. Like other government employees, they too have not been paid salaries for months. Meshal said the education department has not provided funds for other needs like maintenance and supplies.
And the opening of the Girls’ High School in Herat remains an exception. Other parts of the country have had less success.
Fahima Popal, principal of Hino No. 1 High School for Girls, said teachers in the southern city of Kandahar approached local Taliban officials about reopening girls’ high schools, but were denied. Officials said they cannot do anything without the orders of the Union Education Ministry. Meanwhile, Pople said parents are asking him when their daughters can return to class.
“We hope that one day we will have good news for them,” Pople said. But he said he believed it was better to wait for the central government’s action than to repeat the Herat experiment. If provincial officials allow the reopening, the ministry could reverse their decision, which “would harm students and teachers,” she said.
Full return of girls is a top demand of the international community and is likely to happen before UN agencies agree to directly pay teachers’ salaries.
So far the Taliban have refused to set a timetable and most schools are starting the winter break by March. In a speech on Saturday, the Taliban prime minister Mohammad Hassan Akhundi “Women are already receiving an education,” insisted, adding only: “There is hope to make it wider, as God allows.”
For weeks in the girls of the Western Province Herat High school classrooms are back – the fruit of a unique, concerted effort by teachers and parents to allow local Taliban administrators to reopen them.
Taliban officials did not approve a formal reopening after a lobbying campaign, but that didn’t stop them even as teachers and parents started classes on their own in early October.
“Parents, students and teachers joined hands to make this happen,” said Mohd Sabar Meshali, head of the Herat Teachers’ Union who helped organize the campaign. “It is the only place where community activists and teachers risked living and talking with the Taliban.”
The teachers kept pressurizing. About 40 female headmasters, including Bashirtkah, met senior Taliban education officials in September to address their main concerns.
“We assured them that classes are segregated, there are only female teachers, and girls wear proper hijabs,” Bashiratkhah said. “We don’t need to change anything. We are Muslims and we already believe everything Islam requires.”
By October, teachers realized they had the Taliban’s tacit agreement not to stand in the way. Teachers began promoting on Facebook pages and messaging app channels that girls’ high schools would reopen on October 3. Parents formed a telephone chain to broadcast the news, and students told classmates.
Mastoura, who has two daughters in class I and VIII studying in Tajrobai, called other parents, urging them to bring their girls to school. Some were concerned that the Taliban would harass the girls or that terrorists might launch an attack. mastoura And other women still take their daughters to school every day.
“We had concerns, and we still have,” said Mastoura, who uses a name similar to that of many Afghans. “But daughters must get education. Without education, your life is at a standstill. ,
Fadih Ismailzadeh, 14, in the ninth grade, said she cried with joy at the news. “We had lost all hope that schools would reopen,” she said.
When the doors opened in Tajrobai, not all the students were visible. But as parents became more confident, classes filled up after a few days, Bashiratkha said. There are about 3,900 students in classes 1-12.
Recently, girls in a 10th grade chemistry class took notes as a teacher explained the elements that make up water. Queues of younger students ran through the hall to the school courtyard.
Shahabuddin Saqeb, the Taliban education director for Herat province, insisted the group had no problem with girls going to school.
“We openly tell everyone that they should come to school,” he told the Associated Press. “Schools are open without any problem. We have never issued any official order stating that girls of high school age should not go to school.”
Herat is the only place where girls’ high schools have opened in the entire province, although schools have also reopened in some isolated districts of northern Afghanistan, including the city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Meshal pointed to changes within the Taliban, saying some factions are more open. “They understand that people will protest on the subject of education.”
He said the Taliban are not corrupt, unlike the ousted, internationally backed government.
“With the previous government, if we proposed something for the betterment of schools, they would throw the idea in the dustbin because they could not benefit from it,” he said.
“The Taliban spent all their time fighting in the mountains. They don’t know about administration. So when we meet them, we try to give them advice and after the conversation, they start moving around,” he said.
Yet teachers are struggling. Like other government employees, they too have not been paid salaries for months. Meshal said the education department has not provided funds for other needs like maintenance and supplies.
And the opening of the Girls’ High School in Herat remains an exception. Other parts of the country have had less success.
Fahima Popal, principal of Hino No. 1 High School for Girls, said teachers in the southern city of Kandahar approached local Taliban officials about reopening girls’ high schools, but were denied. Officials said they cannot do anything without the orders of the Union Education Ministry. Meanwhile, Pople said parents are asking him when their daughters can return to class.
“We hope that one day we will have good news for them,” Pople said. But he said he believed it was better to wait for the central government’s action than to repeat the Herat experiment. If provincial officials allow the reopening, the ministry could reverse their decision, which “would harm students and teachers,” she said.
Full return of girls is a top demand of the international community and is likely to happen before UN agencies agree to directly pay teachers’ salaries.
So far the Taliban have refused to set a timetable and most schools are starting the winter break by March. In a speech on Saturday, the Taliban prime minister Mohammad Hassan Akhundi “Women are already receiving an education,” insisted, adding only: “There is hope to make it wider, as God allows.”
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