EFSAS-The Securitization of Education in Afghanistan-September 2022
EFSAS-The Securitization of Education in Afghanistan-September 2022
EFSAS-The Securitization of Education in Afghanistan-September 2022
Introduction
When Afghanistan’s Taliban caretaker government announced that young women and girls would
be allowed to continue their education, the world seemed prepared to hope that this time the
Taliban would deviate from the strict education ban they enforced while ruling the country for the
first time from 1996 - 2001 (Knipp, 2022). However, a year after the takeover, the international
interest in the situation in Afghanistan has faded, just as the promises made by the Taliban.
Afghanistan is currently the only country in the world depriving women and girls from getting an
education, as pointed out in an open letter by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai in
September 2021 (Psaledakis, 2021).
While this does not come as a huge surprise to many close observers and analysts, the so-
called “U-turn” on the promise to allow teenage girls return to secondary school further restricts
the already limited possibility of Western governments to negotiate with the Taliban which leads
to multiple dilemmas. On the one hand, the leverage that is granted to the Taliban by inviting them
to negotiations results in powerful images of Talibs on private jets that are used to boost their claim
of legitimacy in Afghanistan. On the other hand, there are 40 million Afghan civilians, looking to
the West for action while facing starvation, for which some form of engagement with the Taliban
will be necessary.
Turning away from this more general discussion about the necessity and possible forms of
engagement with the Taliban - that is however ultimately deeply entrenched with girls’ education
- this article attempts to analyze and anticipate lines of development in relation to public and
private education in Afghanistan. This examination highlights the securitization of the Afghan
educational sector by spotlighting possible long-term trajectories of educational bodies, especially
in times of social and military conflict. To this end, the Taliban’s (previous and current)
educational policies are analyzed by means of a feminist institutional lens in order A) to shed light
on the interaction between formal and informal institutions and the gendered way in which they
shape political and social outcomes (Kenny, 2013) and B) to understand the Taliban’s reasons for
a highly securitized educational sector that is based on the exclusion of women. As a next step,
future trajectories and opportunities for international actors to not completely give up its remaining
leverage on a deprived Afghan nation are discussed. In this context it becomes clear that (public
and private) educational bodies are a key factor in shaping the social and political deposition of a
country and play a vital role in developing a State by means of knowledge production and capacity-
building.
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The divergence between demand and capacity posed significant challenges to quality assurance
of higher education. Private universities did not require students to take the national university
entrance exam (Kankor exam), and therefore attracted less well-educated applicants who regarded
private higher education as an alternative. In addition, the accreditation system for private
institutions had not been properly implemented due to a lack of government capacity and
resources, allowing for private institutes to run as extensions political and religious patronage
networks. Ibrahimi concluded in a 2014 report that the “Afghan government lack[ed] both the
material and human resources and a longterm strategic vision to effectively regulate the sector”.
However, all positive trends and development of the education sector in Afghanistan came
to an abrupt end when the Taliban seized power in August 2021. While the consequences remain
volatile and circumstances can be subject to change on a daily basis, one trend is foreseeable:
The Securitization of Education in Afghanistan
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Against the will of Afghan civilians, of which 87% were in favor of gender equality in education
(Dreikhausen & Gaub, 2022), the Taliban do not plan to provide women and girls with the same
education as men and boys and continue their crackdown on women’s rights.
their curriculum and focus on religious subjects, restrictions that are particularly discouraging for
female students.
What becomes clear is that the Taliban’s educational policies have serious short-term
implications for children who are stuck at home and unable to receive the necessary education to
build a future for Afghanistan. The country is in crisis, parents can no longer afford tuition fees
for their children and many private education centers were forced to close. This further contributes
to the already high unemployment and exacerbates economic meltdown. Additionally, the Taliban
have quickly begun to dismantle the educational achievements made in the last two decades and
are thereby risking a similar setback to the 1990s.
of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the ministry that has replaced the Afghan Ministry of Women’s
Affairs quickly after the Taliban takeover last August. It was further announced that women and
girls should not leave their homes unless necessary, and the ministry established possible
punishments for male chaperones in case the decree is breached (Human Rights Watch, 2022). In
contradiction to these announcements, the Taliban’s official spokesperson Suhail Shaheen stated
in an interview with the BBC that women solely have to wear a traditional hijab to cover their
head. These contradictory statements illustrate the discord of the Taliban, which on the one hand
rely on the symbolic regulation of women’s rights and bodies as almost the only sign of power,
and on the other hand are in urgent need of international aid funds.
In turn, this means that the international community still has limited leverage to pursue the
Taliban to reform their policies on women.
Conclusion
This article has taken a closer look at the development and state of public and private education in
Afghanistan. Building on what happened to the Afghan education system as a result of sustained
conflict and war in the second half of the 20th century, it must be noted that education is in fact to
some extent the cause of the current situation: The religious education, or rather indoctrination, in
Madrassas has sowed the seeds for sustained extremism not only in Afghanistan, but in the region
as a whole.
After the fall of the first Taliban regime, a public education system was slowly re-
established, giving more young people access to education. Due to a lack of State resources, the
private sector became a crucial pillar in the Afghan education system, and the demand for
education was (and remains) extremely high. The development of this sector and the educated
people it produced were seen as a crucial engine for Afghanistan’s future development, an engine
that was abruptly thwarted by the Taliban takeover.
In particular, the Taliban leadership is causing multiple insecurities for women, with
gender as highly relevant in the production of (in)security. First and foremost, the ban on education
for women shows how formal institutions, in this case public and private education institutions,
are being instrumentalized to produce gendered outcomes and to systematically discriminate
against women and girls. However, beyond the immediate horrendous consequences for women
and girls, this ban gives closer insight in the anatomy of the second Taliban regime. Bearing in
mind the state of the country and the multiple conflict hotspots (most notably against the Panjshir
Resistance and the Islamic State), as well as the dire need for international support, the Taliban
has risked revealing its divisions over the question of women’s education. The outwardly visible
disunity has confirmed analysts’ conjectures about increasing divisions within the Taliban ranks,
with the hard-liners keeping the upper hand (Gannon, 2022b).
The issue of women’s rights in society, and in particular the issue of education for girls, is
probably the most obvious divide that runs through the Taliban regime. The Taliban has
The Securitization of Education in Afghanistan
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understood that education is powerful, which is exactly why the education of women is so
dangerous for the organization. Currently, the Taliban is neither able to guarantee security, nor to
address the economic crisis and ensuing poverty and hunger. What remains is highly symbolic
policy-making focused on women’s bodies and rights, the only area in which they can supposedly
exercise power without any legitimacy and financial resources. The securitization of the
educational sector and in particular with regard to women and girls’ access is thus necessary for
the Taliban’s Islamist identity.
Aside from the drastic short-term consequences felt by Afghan civilians, the developments
in the educational sector will affect the country in the long-term. The collapse of the private
educational sector will lead to further unemployment and worsen economic crisis in what can only
be characterized as a vicious cycle. Poverty and hunger often force (educated) Afghans to flee the
country, with brain drain further mitigating the countries’ chances for the desperately needed
development. Recent numbers show that half of the Afghan population experience “high levels of
acute food insecurity” (UN News, 2022). The Taliban is clearly unable to govern the country and
has begun a return to familiar decrees and policies of the 1990s. Nonetheless, the international
community must continue to find spaces to support Afghan civilians, many of them working
relentlessly to build the country. Although imperfect, private education has proven extremely
powerful in the developments post-2001, and private initiatives continue to bring education to war-
torn communities and strive to improve people’s lives by means of education. These initiatives
need financial support, and countries must continue to use the remaining leverage to convince the
Taliban to pursue reforms, while simultaneously providing resources and support to (private)
education campaigns.
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September 2022. © European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS), Amsterdam