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Women education in Afghanistan: A historical perspective
Abstract
Women's education in Afghanistan has always faced socio-cultural and political barriers. Especially in the 20th century, there have been several attempts to expand educational opportunities for women but failed. This paper tries to understand the ups and downs of women's education in the 20th century in Afghanistan and to explore why the attempts to expand Afghan women's access to education failed. Findings suggest that the opening of Masturat as the first girls’ school in 1921 marks the start of modern and formal education for women in Afghanistan. King Amanullah has devoted his efforts to expanding the educational access of Afghan women. Despite some notable achievements, the whole modernizing agenda of the King faced social resistance that led to the rule out of some programs, including women's education, and finally, his removal from the power. From 1930 to 1960, women's education experienced steady progress. Notable progress was made in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s but experienced a radical setback in the 1990s. According to findings, socio-cultural and patriarchal conservative norms, weak central states, and conflict were the main obstacles to women's access to education in the 20th century in Afghanistan.
... Modern education was formally launched in Afghanistan during the reign of Amir Habibullah at the turn of the twentieth century. The first modern secondary school in Afghanistan, Habibia, opened in 1903 [12]. [3], indicated positive points about the existence of Mahmud Tarzi, (a modernist author), during the reign of Habibullah. ...
... He made schools for girls and sent some of them to Turkey to continue their education [10]. According to [12], education for girls was Amanullah's most remarkable legacy. He [12] continued that Masturat was the first girls' school that established in 1921 in Kabul. ...
... According to [12], education for girls was Amanullah's most remarkable legacy. He [12] continued that Masturat was the first girls' school that established in 1921 in Kabul. In addition, a women's adult education centre was established in Kabul. ...
Female education in Afghanistan has experienced numerous ups and downs throughout history. It has never been considered suitable, even before the three decades of civil war in Afghanistan. However, during the former Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, female students were completely deprived of educational opportunities. Due to the Taliban's perception and their interpretation of Islam on female education, no women were permitted to attend educational institutions at that time, resulting in zero women's participation. A new hope for the Afghan people was created in 2001 with the establishment of an interim administration and the support of the international community. Striving for 20 years on building infrastructures, including education, was going to bring a stable situation for women in terms of education and marketplaces. But anonymous decisions by the U.S. and the evacuation of Afghanistan set the country back on a fragile path, and women are deprived of education again in the country.
... Amanullah encouraged girls' education throughout the country and spread it from Kabul to other provinces [12]; [13] but the majority of the traditional population exists in rural areas, organising social movements to struggle for public education for girls [14]. In January 1929, one of the leaders of the anti-reform movement, Habibullah Kalakani, assumed control of the country when Amanullah left Afghanistan. ...
... When President Dawod took control of Afghanistan in 1973, he reinforced modernization and female education. When the Communist regime came to power in October 1978, they announced compulsory education, particularly for women, as anti-traditional and antireligious, and this action created a challenge to male authority [14]; [12]; [16]. ...
In the ancient world, the aim and role of both religions and educational institutions were to bring peace, harmony, and good governance among the nations. After centuries, educational institutions adopted new values and modernized them, but religions could not align themselves with the new standards. Therefore, religions failed to follow their main goals and could not respond to the needs of human society. But instead of withdrawing and giving their place to the educational system or other social institutions, religions confronted new values. The result of this confrontation was the promotion of extremism among religious communities. The conflict between religion and new values in all societies has caused negative effects on all social and political structures, including educational institutions. In Afghanistan, the conflict between Islam and modernism has targeted the education system more than in other sectors. The presence of women in markets and educational institutions, as well as in the curriculum, was a priority for secular and extremist governments in the last century. The communist government in Afghanistan removed the hijab from girls and gave them equal rights with boys. They ignored Islamic subjects in educational institutions. During their first tenure (1996-2001), the Taliban isolated girls and denied them access to education and markets. They replaced many subjects with Arabic and Islamic subjects. In the current period, their aim is to modify the educational system according to their own beliefs. The confrontation between religious extremism and modernization has damaged the country's education system and caused most of our younger generation to be deprived of applied knowledge.
... Hay que subrayar que tanto la purdha como el pastunwali son anteriores al nacimiento de la religión islámica. Con el paso de los siglos, en Afganistán aparece el islam, que se entremezcla con la purdah y el pastunwali, creando una red sostenida bajo la justificación de la tradición, la costumbre, la etnicidad y la religión (Frogh, 2022). Esta triada patriarcal -tradición, etnia y religión-va a tener influencia directa en el sistema educativo y en el proceso de socialización afgano durante largos periodos de su historia moderna, consiguiendo que se vea con normalidad que el ser mujer y haber nacido en Afganistán conlleve una serie de limitaciones en la titularidad de derechos. ...
Tras e regreso talibán, las mujeres afganas han perdido el escaso aire fresco que corría por el país, principalmente en las áreas urbanas y gracias a los proyectos de
desarrollo financiados por la comunidad internacional, ha quedado estancado con el regreso del fundamentalismo talibán que ve a las mujeres como portadoras de una tradición ancestral que las relega a la invisibilidad y al silencio fuera del ámbito familiar. La presencia internacional y la condicionalidad de los fondos de desarrollo permitieron avanzar hacia un rol más relevante y activo de las mujeres en la sociedad afgana, aunque no lo suficiente como para acercarse a la deseada igualdad. Ciertamente, muchos han sido los avances que se han conseguido durante el periodo de intervención internacional, pero la realidad actual en la que viven las afganas sigue siendo muy oscura. Sin lugar a duda, el desarrollo de proyectos dedicados al empoderamiento de las mujeres ha contribuido a cambiar la conciencia de muchas de ellas, e incluso a sembrar la semilla de un movimiento feminista incipiente, muy visible durante los primeros meses del nuevo gobierno talibán.
... Historically, education in Afghanistan had many ups and downs and was the center of conflict between opposite groups (Frogh, 2022). Education has carried the idea of socialism extremism (Khwajamir, 2016), and has supported jihadists' militant ideologies in the country (Panjsheeri, 2017;Mashwani, 2017;Whitsel & Mehran, 2010). ...
This article covers the growth of the education system under the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. This article provides a brief overview of the ministries of education and higher education's major projects on education from 2001 to 2019. In order to clarify the major works, there is a statistical comparison of the numbers of schools, educational institutions, universities, teachers, and students between 2001 and 2019 based on secondary data. Besides this quantitative comparison, the article covers some of the most related literature, such as creating teaching and administrative evaluation departments in the ministry of education as well as the creation of quality assurance in the ministry of higher education.
This study examines women’s access to education (‘gender justice’) during the rule of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992, using a qualitative research methodology and discourse analysis at the operational level from the perspective of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The data collected in this research were extracted from textual sources concerning the role of women in education in Afghanistan in the Marxist era: the importance of the data concerns an understanding of the intellectual and political atmosphere, particularly with regard to women’s education, in the government of the time. It is concluded that several factors contributed to the failure of the hegemonic discourse, despite intensive efforts made by Marxist government to realize hegemony and gender justice. Political agents, availability, credibility and exclusion, as elements of the hegemonic discourse, were evaluated and it is further concluded that these elements were unable to play an effective role in the discourse, as had been expected, and were gradually marginalized.
Since taking power in Afghanistan in September 1996, the Taliban (Students of Islam) have imposed the most draconian measures and enacted, arguably, the most systematic repression of women in history. Ritual punishments and arbitrary, immediate flogging and other measures administered by gun- and whip-wielding young thugs in the name of Islam are commonplace. All but work and prayer are forbidden, but special laws against women leave them destitute; terrorized; without proper medical care or educational opportunities; and, increasingly, mentally and physically ill. Mounting evidence from reports from Afghanistan and Pakistan provides ample illustration of how the Taliban distorts the true teachings of Islam, partly out of ignorance, partly because of their distorted view of women, but, equally, to promote a regime where terror is a critical instrument for power and control.
The war in Afghanistan was one of the most brutal and long lasting conflicts of the second half of the twentieth century. Anthropologists specializing in Afghanistan who wrote about the war at the time reiterated the United State's Cold War rhetoric rather than provide objective analyses. Others ignored the war altogether. What happened in Afghanistan, and why, and the need for objective reassessments only came to mind after the September 11th attacks. This paper examines the genesis and various permutations of the Afghan war in terms of causal dynamics embedded in the broader interstate relations of the world system and its competing military complexes during the second half of the twentieth century and changes in that system in the post-Cold War period.
One of the first achievements of post-conflict Afghanistan was to bring almost 4 million children back to school. Issues remain daunting, however, with low primary enrollment especially for girls and in rural areas and very weak learning achievements. We review some key features of the education system in Afghanistan. By matching household and school data, we assess the impact of various factors on enrollment. Overall, the analysis indicates that further increasing supply alone is unlikely to lead to higher enrollment. The analysis confirms the importance of demand factors such as the education of parents, the family language, and other community and ethnic factors.
With the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan embarked upon a new beginning, recognizing anew the contribution of the female half of its society. The Bonn Agreement called for specific attention to the role of women and established a dedicated government structure for this purpose, the Ministry of Women's Affairs. The core strategy for women's advancement is defined as 'gender mainstreaming' in the National Development Framework. This report is intended to serve as an input for the government's efforts to address gender disparities. The Role of Women in Afghanistan's Future synthesizes existing information and identifies critical areas in which gender-responsive actions are likely to enhance growth, poverty reduction and human well-being. The extent of gender discrimination in Afghanistan is pervasive, and the present report focuses on a few key sectors deemed particularly important for both short- and long-term interventions. Gender gaps are widespread in health, education, access to and control over resources, economic opportunities and power and political voice, and while women and girls bear the direct cost of these inequalities, the negative effects are felt throughout society.
Accessible at http://www.popline.org/node/265580
A comprehensive and up to date study of the history of education in Afghanistan since 1901, this bookdemonstrates how modern education emerged and charts its fluctuating process of development, regression and destruction.
Afghanistan has a long history of social unrest and ethnic conflict, and the manipulation of the education system by internal and external powers for political purposes has been one of the major contributors to these divisions. As Afghanistan attempts to build peace and maintain co‐existence after more than 20 years of violence, there continues to be limited attention given to one of the main contributors to the social divisions. More than four million children returned to school in the first two years of ‘peace’ in Afghanistan. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by the United Nations and other international donors on ensuring the physical provision of schools for children. However in 2005, three years into ‘the new era for Afghanistan’, teachers continue to teach ethnic hatred and intolerance. The textbooks continue to be highly politicised, promoting social divisions and violence, seemingly unnoticed by the International Community, whose expensive investments fuel rather than restrain this problem. A new curriculum for Afghanistan together with upgraded teacher capacities are the most pertinent factors to ensure that peace is established and maintained in the country. This will ensure that the new generation of Afghans learns a sense of social responsibility and national pride, incorporating ideas of unity in diversity and not an intolerance of perceived ‘difference’ based on militant ideologies.
In this paper, through the history of women in Afghanistan, I want to locate the position of women in the future by lessons learnt from the past. Given Afghanistan's current situation of poverty, political disenfranchisement and social disarray, I argue that these very deficiencies could be maneuvered to favor the empowerment of women by redefining her role in the family and the community. Afghanistan's social development can only be ensured through democracy and the reduction of poverty, the success of both being assured through full participation of women, especially in rural Afghanistan. In this paper I would like to trace the history of women in Afghanistan for three main reasons. One, to show that women in Afghanistan were not always oppressed by fundamentalism as occurred under the Mujahideen and the Taliban. Second, to go back into history and reflect on regimes and politicians to show that women's issues were an integral part of national construction agendas even as far back as the 1920s. Third, to highlight the power of tribal/community leaders in defining the role of women and in successfully resisting any modernization that would challenge their patriarchal authority.
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