KABUL: Universities in Kabul are almost empty on the first day of the Afghanistan year, as a professor and students struggle with new rules that limit the Taliban to class.
The Taliban had promised the rules that were softer than during their first task from 1996-2001, when women’s freedom in Afghanistan sharply limited and they were banned from higher education.
This time, the Islamic group Hardline said women would be allowed to go to private universities under the new regime, but they faced difficult restrictions on their clothes and movements.
Women can only attend classes if they use abaya – robes that flow – and niqab – a face veil with a small window to see – and separated from men, the Taliban said.
“Our students did not accept this and we had to close the university,” said Noor Ali Rahmani, Director of Gharjistan University in Kabul, on campus which was almost empty on Monday.
“Our students wear headscarves, not niqab,” he added, referring to the headscarf.
The Taliban Education Authority issued a long document on Sunday describing their steps for the classroom, which also ruled that men and women must be separated – or at least divided by curtains if there are 15 students or less.
“We said we did not accept it because it would be difficult to do,” Rahmani told AFP.
“We also said that it was not true Islam, not what the Qur’an said.” From now on college and private universities, which have mushroomed since the first rules of the Taliban end, women only have to be taught by other women, or “old men”, and use the only female entrance.
They also had to end their lessons five minutes earlier than men to stop them from getting along outside.
So far, the Taliban said nothing about state universities.
However, for some students, it is a relief that women can still attend universities at all under the new Taliban regime.
Zuhra Bahman, who runs a scholarship program for women in Afghanistan, said on social media he had spoken with several students.
“They are happy to return to the university, even though they are hijab,” he said.
“The Taliban opening university for women is the main progress.
Let’s continue to be involved to approve other rights and freedom.” Jalil Tadjlil, spokesman for Ibn-e Sina University in the capital, said separate entrances have been created for men and women.
“We have no authority to accept or reject the decisions that have been enforced,” he told AFP, blaming “sustainable uncertainty” for the lack of students.
Universities post online pictures of male and female students separated by curtains.
Images distributed on Facebook by the Department of Economics and Management showed six women wearing headscarves and ten male students with gray curtains that walked between them, as a teacher wrote on the board.
Usually, the campus corridor on the first day will be packed with students catch up after summer.
But on Monday, there are very low voters at Kabul University, leaving educational leaders wondering how much young, talented people have left the country as part of the “brain tract”.
Rahmani only said 10 to 20 percent of the 1,000 students who registered last year came to Gharjistan University on Monday, even though there were no scheduled classes.
He estimated that up to 30 percent of students left Afghanistan after the Taliban grabbed control in mid-August.
“We must see first if students come,” he said.
Reza Ramazan, a computer science teacher at the university said female students were very risky while traveling to campus.
“It can be dangerous at the checkpoint,” he said.
“Taliban can check their phone and computer.” For the 28-year-old computer science student Amir Hussein, “everything changed completely” after the Taliban takeover.
“Many students are no longer interested in learning because they don’t know what their future will be,” he said.
“Most of them want to leave Afghanistan.”