Five years after the Taliban’s return, UNESCO reports 2.4 million Afghan girls locked out of secondary schooling, warning of irreversible harm, teacher shortages, economic losses and a lost generation as restrictions deepen.
An estimated 2.4 million girls in Afghanistan are now denied secondary education under the Taliban’s continuing ban, UNESCO said on Tuesday. This marks a rise from its previous figure of 2.2 million and underscores the cumulative toll of policies that have kept girls out of classrooms beyond the sixth grade for nearly five years.
Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO’s programme coordinator for education in emergencies, presented the updated estimate during a news conference. The figure applies specifically to girls who would otherwise be in secondary school. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world that formally prohibits girls and women from secondary and higher education.
“Five years is not a temporary interruption in a child’s education. It is clearly almost an entire secondary school cycle,” Jaberian said. She stressed that the ban is reversing two decades of hard-won gains: while access for girls was severely limited in 2001, nearly one million were enrolled in secondary education by 2021.
The increase of roughly 200,000 from the prior estimate reflects the steady flow of younger girls reaching secondary-school age while the restrictions remain firmly in place. If the ban continues, the number could approach four million by 2030.
Restrictions Reach Beyond the Classroom
The policies extend far past school gates. Women who had previously studied at universities, including in fields such as medicine where authorities once showed limited flexibility, now face barriers to continuing their studies or obtaining diplomas, accreditation and other documentation of prior learning.
“There is no flexibility,” Jaberian said. “They are all banned from continuity or even receiving their accreditations, their diplomas, or any other proof of learning.” UNESCO has condemned these measures but is not currently engaged in talks with Taliban authorities specifically aimed at securing diplomas for affected students.
The agency does operate a Qualifications Passport programme to help refugees and displaced people document previous education so they can continue studies or seek employment in host countries. Yet for those remaining inside Afghanistan, formal pathways remain closed.
Returnees Add Pressure on a Strained System
The education crisis is intensified by the large-scale return of Afghans from neighbouring countries. Children under 15 account for 56 per cent of current returnees, creating significant additional demand for schooling. Girls who attended secondary school while living abroad often find themselves unable to continue once back in Afghanistan. The combination of displacement and Taliban restrictions threatens educational continuity and risks deepening inequalities among already vulnerable returnee families.
Broader systemic problems compound the damage. National literacy stands at about 37 per cent, and more than 90 per cent of 10-year-olds cannot read a simple text. Many schools are overcrowded and poorly equipped; nearly half lack water, sanitation or heating. Natural disasters have forced the closure of about 1,000 schools in recent years.
Teacher Shortages Hit Boys as Well
Taliban policies have also removed large numbers of qualified teachers from the system, with consequences that extend to boys. Restrictions preventing women from teaching boys, combined with the ban on women’s higher education, are shrinking the pool of trained educators. UNESCO projects a shortage of more than 11,000 qualified female teachers by 2030. In some cases, boys are being taught by unqualified male teachers or left without instructors because replacements were not trained in time.
Jaberian noted that many teachers have left the country and those remaining face tight constraints. The decision to bar women from teaching boys “has not only removed a substantial number of qualified teachers and educators from the education system, but it also resulted in boys being taught by unqualified male teachers… We are left with unqualified male teachers or no teachers at all.”
Economic and Social Costs Mount
The long-term consequences are severe. UNESCO estimates the bans on secondary and higher education for females could push around 600,000 Afghan women out of the workforce by 2066, generate $9.6 billion in cumulative income losses, and raise the risk of early marriage. Nearly half the population already lives below the poverty line; blocking women from education and many forms of work further limits families’ ability to improve their circumstances.
These restrictions form part of a wider pattern that the United Nations has described as gender apartheid, encompassing limits on employment, movement, public spaces and other aspects of daily life.
Alternative Learning Cannot Replace Schools
Despite the bans, UNESCO continues to operate inside Afghanistan, supporting community-based literacy and skills programmes that have reached nearly 70,000 people aged 15 to 45, the majority of them women. These include literacy classes, skills development, educational media and distance learning. Partners such as the Global Partnership for Education, the European Union and Canada support the work.
Jaberian was clear, however, that such efforts are stopgaps, not solutions. “There is no substitute” for a classroom and a qualified teacher, she said. Literacy programmes and distance learning should not be regarded as replacements for formal schooling.
UNESCO reiterated its call for the immediate and unconditional restoration of girls’ and women’s access to secondary and higher education. “Afghan girls and women have the right to learn,” Jaberian said, describing education as a basic human right and urging the international community “not to look away from them until their human rights are restored.”
As the Taliban approach the fifth anniversary of their return to power, the latest figures serve as a stark reminder of the human cost of policies that continue to exclude half the population from the classrooms that once offered a path out of poverty and isolation. UNESCO says it will keep seeking every possible avenue to support learning while pressing for the restrictions to be lifted.
