Six months after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, the country’s largest colleges reopened on Saturday, but just a trickle of women returned to now-segregated lectures.
Following the Taliban’s takeover on August 15, most secondary schools for girls and all public institutions were closed, raising fears that women would be denied access to education, as they were under the hardline Islamists’ first rule, from 1996 to 2001.
The Taliban say that this time they will allow girls and women to attend school, but only in separate courses and following an Islamic curriculum.
Some public tertiary schools in the south of the country reopened last month, but Kabul University, the country’s oldest and largest, reopened without fanfare and with only a few students in attendance on Saturday.
Journalists were denied access to the large campus by Taliban guards, who chased away media teams standing near the entrance.
Away from the gates, though, AFP spoke to some students who expressed mixed emotions after their first day back.
