Taliban Orders Public Religious Exams for Afghan Faculty at 167 Universities
Updated
Updated · Inside Higher Ed · Aug 28
Taliban Orders Public Religious Exams for Afghan Faculty at 167 Universities
1 articles · Updated · Inside Higher Ed · Aug 28
Summary
A new Taliban directive lets officials stop Afghan university faculty on campus and publicly quiz them on religious topics, a move professors say has ushered in a new era of fear and humiliation.
The oral tests can be conducted without warning in front of students, signaling that the aim is less assessment than degrading lecturers and weakening some of the last nonreligious authority figures in civil society.
That order builds on five years of tighter control, including salary cuts, curriculum changes, campus morality policing, bans on books by women and four added religious credits, while women have already been pushed out of higher education.
Afghanistan’s university system had expanded from 8,000 students in 2001 to more than 400,000 by 2021, but faculty and students now increasingly question the value of degrees as jobs go to Taliban fighters and their relatives.