Afghan Taliban end opposition to girls' education: Report

Afghanistan's education minister says that talks with the Taliban have led to an agreement.

The Taliban are ready to drop their opposition to the education of girls in Afghanistan, the country's education minister has said, according to a report in the UK's Times Educational Supplement (TES).

The minister, Farooq Wardak, who was speaking at the Education World Forum in London, told TES that discussions with the Taliban had led to an agreement.

“It is attitudinal change, it is behavoural change, it is cultural change,” Wardak told TES, “What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban is that they are no more opposing education and also girls’ education.”

Afghan women were not allowed to get an education nor allowed to work under the Taliban government that came into power in Afghanistan in 1996 and was toppled in 2001.

“During the Taliban era the percentage of girls of the one million students that we had was zero per cent. The percentage of female teachers was zero per cent. Today 38 per cent of our students and 30 per cent of our teachers … are female,” Wardak said.

According to a report in the BBC, this development suggests that the Afghan government, confirmed to have been holding unofficial talks with the Taliban, may have started to negotiate on policy matters. They report that the agreements have been struck at a local level between village elders and militants, who have allowed female teachers and girls to return to schools.

The Taliban have made no public comment on the issue.