• The ban has left thousands of classrooms and buildings empty, with only six grades of girls’ schools active.
• Public school teacher Najla Ahmadzai suggests that the empty classrooms could accommodate more girls in lower grades.
• The policy is preventing girls from achieving their dreams and hopes, highlighting the need for more inclusive education.

Before the Taliban suspended secondary education for girls, some of Salma’s friends attended her school in Kabul with their older sisters. However, after the ban was imposed almost three years ago, they stopped attending classes altogether.

“They didn’t want to come alone. It’s sad to lose my friends,” Salma, who is now in the fifth grade, told the News.

She also recalled visiting the classrooms for older girls, located on the second floor, with her friends back then. She no longer visits those classrooms because they have remained empty since the ban. This situation reminds the 12-year-old of the uncertain future that lies ahead for her.

“It’s even more upsetting to think that we will not be able to come to our school after two years. We will graduate after grade six and then there will be no future for us after that,” she said.

Since September 2021, a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the authorities have prohibited girls from attending secondary school. This ban has denied about 1.1 million girls access to formal education and left thousands of classrooms and buildings empty.

“Girls’ schools are active only up to the sixth grade. The rest of the classes — seventh through 12th grades — are … not being used,” an official from the Afghan Ministry of Education told Arab News. “The remaining buildings are non-functional.”

As of August 2022, Afghanistan officially recognized about 20,000 schools, with only about half having functional buildings and around 5,000 damaged by the war, according to data from the education ministry. Before the education ban, official estimates indicated there were about 4,000 secondary and high schools for girls in the country.

Najla Ahmadzai, a public school teacher in Kabul, suggested that the empty classrooms and buildings that once housed older girls could instead accommodate more girls in lower grades.

“Previously, we didn’t have sufficient space to admit more girl students. We had very low admission rates. Now that we have more space, we can admit more girls, especially in grades one to three,” she told the News, adding that the unused spaces can bring about “positive change.”

But even so, she said, the empty classrooms that were previously used by girls in higher grades “make my heart ache.”

“It’s painful and unbelievable for me as a teacher and as a mother. I think about my daughters but also the daughters of the country. They have the right to get an education and deserve to be a part of society.”

The abandoned buildings serve as painful reminders of what was taken from girls like Bibi Laila, who, at 16, is among those not allowed to attend school.

“Instead of using the buildings to educate girls, especially older girls, they are just empty and turning into scary spaces because no one has gone there for the past three years,” Laila said.

“We have schools, we have buildings, we have teachers, books and everything. We can go to school starting tomorrow. But the (Taliban) policy is stopping me and thousands of other girls from becoming educated and achieving our dreams and hopes.”

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