Kashmir Digits

Taliban have announced that girls in Afghanistan will soon be able to attend secondary schools with the exact timing to be announced by Ministry of Education.

Qari Saeed Khosty, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that  schools will be reopened and all the girls and women will return to school.

“From my understanding and information, in a very short time all the universities and schools will be reopened and all the girls and women will return to school and their teaching jobs,” he said.

Following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, teenage girls were told to stay home from school until a “safe learning environment” could be established. But boys in all grades and girls of primary age were told to return to school.

The exclusion of older girls has aggravated fears that the Taliban could be returning to their hardline rule of the 1990s, when women and girls were legally barred from education and employment.

Khosti “indicated that it was imminent that girls in secondary schools and their female teachers would be returning very soon,” said Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Kabul.

“This is something that we’ve been hearing from the Taliban since they took power. Yes, they’re going to return. But it’s going to take time. And of course, that’s taking a toll on a lot of the girls,” she said.

When the Taliban took power in August, the armed group promised to uphold the rights of girls and women.

It also named an all-male cabinet, saying women could be included later.