Five years have passed since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. For Afghan students, especially girls and women, these years have brought the systematic destruction of their right to education.
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where girls and women are formally prohibited from education beyond primary school. An estimated 2.4 million girls are excluded from secondary education, while women have been banned from universities since December 2022.
The crisis extends across the entire education system. More than two million primary-school-aged children are out of school, and 93% of children completing primary education have not yet achieved basic reading proficiency. Shortages of qualified teachers, learning materials and sustainable funding continue to undermine the education of girls and boys alike.
After five years, there is a growing danger that this situation becomes accepted as Afghanistan’s new normal, that attention moves elsewhere while an entire generation is denied its future. Let us not let Afghanistan become another forgotten crisis.
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