Afghanistan: Getting and Keeping Girls in School Remains a Challenge

Even with the Taliban officially out of power, barriers for girls and women seeking an education remain. These include: lack of adequate facilities (some schools are actually tents), a shortage of qualified female teachers (in a society where gender separation is still important), lack of books and a continued fear of violence from the Taliban and/or their sympathizers.

Afghanistan’s Girl Gap

Aryn Baker (Time Magazine)

… The parlous status of girls’ education belies one of the greatest hopes raised when the Taliban was toppled by U.S.-led forces in 2001: the liberation of Afghanistan’s women. Yes, they can now vote, they have a quarter of the seats in parliament, and they are legally allowed to find jobs outside the home. Foreign donors and nongovernmental organizations have expended a great deal of energy and capital on building women’s centers and conducting gender-awareness workshops. But more than six years since the fall of the Taliban, fewer than 30% of eligible girls are enrolled in schools, and the infrastructure is so poor that only a tiny fraction are likely to get the education they need to enjoy the fruits of emancipation…