Taliban officials in Afghanistan’s Herat province have ordered government and private universities that girls will no longer be allowed to sit in the same class with boys, Khama News reported.In a three-hour meeting between university lecturers, owners of private institutions and Taliban officials, the latter said there was no substitute and justification for continuing co-education and should be abolished. Afghanistan has a mixed system of co-education and segregated classes, with schools conducting separate classes, while co-education is implemented in government and private universities and institutions across the country.
Lecturers in Herat province have argued that government universities and institutions can administer classes separately, but because of the limited number of female students in private institutions, the latter cannot afford to create separate classes. The head of higher education of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Mullah Farid, who was representing the Taliban at the meeting in Herat, has said that co-education should be abolished as the system is the root of all evil in society. Farid suggested as an alternative that female lecturers or elderly men who are virtuous are allowed to teach female students and there is no substitute or justification for co-education. Lecturers in Herat said that since private institutions cannot afford separate classes, thousands of girls could be deprived of higher education.