Countries | International Higher Education Summer 2023
By Abdul Aziz Mohibbi and Noah Coburn
In two short years, universities in Afghanistan have seen a drastic drop in enrollment due to the Taliban ban on women in higher education and a culture of surveillance and fear. At the same time, however, the Taliban have moved to begin to restructure curricula and universities themselves to impose their own versions of conservative religiosity, in stark contrast with the expansion of universities under the previous government.
Abdul Aziz Mohibbi is an environmental engineer who is currently a visiting researcher at Maynooth University and Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. He is also the former Chancellor of Bamiyan University in Afghanistan.