|
Devastated Afghan girls leave school hours after reopening
[AlAhram] Atiya Azimi was up all night packing and repacking her bag, feverish at returning to school for the first time since the Taliban ...Arabic for students... seized control of Afghanistan. The joy was shockingly brief. In the middle of a lesson, just hours after the school reopened, she learned the hardline Islamists had revoked permission for girls to study. "Suddenly we were told to leave until another order is issued," said Azimi, who was returning to grade 12 at Zarghona Girls School in the capital Kabul. "What have we done wrong? Why should women and girls face this situation? I ask the Islamic Emirate to start our classes." "I did not sleep the whole night thinking about going back to school again," she told AFP. Secondary school age girls have been out of education for around a year in many provinces. Schools were first closed under the previous US-backed government as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, and after the Taliban took power the new rulers reopened all schools for boys. But girls were allowed to return only to primary schools and were banned from secondary schools in most areas. The Islamists claimed that schools needed to be adapted so girls and boys could be segregated, despite the vast majority of schools in conservative Afghanistan already operating separate classrooms. The Taliban's education ministry weeks ago announced that girls' secondary schools would reopen for the start of the new academic year on Wednesday. The 11th hour U-turn, which has yet to be explained by the Taliban, was a devastating blow for students. "Our hopes were high but now they are shattered," said Muthahera Arefi, 17, turning around from a Kabul school to head home. Across the country, groups of jubilant girls had arrived at schools on Wednesday morning carrying their bags and books, greeting their former classmates with grins and chatter. At Rabia Balkhi school in the capital, girls were not able to even make it through the school gates. "They denied us entry into the school. It's heartbreaking for my girls," said a mother who asked not to be named. One of her two daughters, both with a hijab covering their hair, was brimming with tears. "I was looking forward to meeting my friends again, to be together again," said the girl, who also asked not to be named.
 ...Arabic for students... ordered girls' secondary schools in Afghanistan to shut down on Wednesday just hours after they reopened, an official confirmed, sparking confusion and heartbreak over the policy reversal by the hardline group. "Yes, it's true," Taliban front man Inamullah Samangani told AFP when asked to confirm reports that girls had been ordered home. He would not immediately explain the reasoning, while education ministry front man Aziz Ahmad Rayan said: "We are not allowed to comment on this." The international community has made the right to education for all a sticking point in negotiations over aid and recognition of the new Taliban regime, with several nations and organizations offering to pay teachers. On Wednesday, the order for girls' secondary schools to resume appeared to only be patchily observed, with reports emerging from some parts of the country — including the Taliban's spiritual heartland of Kandahar — that classes would restart next month instead. But several did reopen in the capital and elsewhere, including Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... and Panjshir — temporarily at least. "All the students that we are seeing today are very happy, and they are here with open eyes," Latifa Hamdard, principal of Gawharshad Begum High School in Herat, told AFP. Even if schools do reopen fully, barriers to girls returning to education remain, with many families suspicious of the Taliban and reluctant to allow their daughters outside. Others see little point in girls learning at all. "Those girls who have finished their education have ended up sitting at home and their future is uncertain," said Heela Haya, 20, from Kandahar, who has decided to quit school. "What will be our future?" It is common for Afghan pupils to miss chunks of the school year as a result of poverty or conflict, and some continue lessons well into their late teens or early twenties. Human Rights Watch also raised the issue of the few avenues girls are given to apply their education. "Why would you and your family make huge sacrifices for you to study if you can never have the career you dreamed of?" said Sahar Fetrat, an assistant researcher with the group. The education ministry acknowledged authorities faced a shortage of teachers — with many among the tens of thousands of people who fled the country as the Taliban swept to power. "We need thousands of teachers and to solve this problem we are trying to hire new teachers on a temporary basis," the front man said. Posted by: trailing wife 2022-03-24 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=628361 |