Schools Restart, Girls Barred For Third Year Running.
Schools in Afghanistan opened for the new academic year on Wednesday, with girls lamenting being banned from joining secondary-level classes for a third year in a row.
Taliban authorities barred girls from secondary school in March 2022, after surging back to power in 2021 and imposing an austere vision of Islam with curbs the United Nations labels “gender apartheid”.
On Wednesday, uniformed boys carried black and white Taliban flags as they lined the entrance of Kabul’s Amani School, where local officials arrived for the ceremonial start of the school year.
Afghanistan is the only country where girls’ education has been banned after elementary school.
Online classes have sprung up in response to restrictions but a dearth of computers and internet, as well as the isolation of learning via screen, makes them a poor substitute for in-person learning.
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