More young women being encouraged into higher education

The Afghan education ministry is making special arrangements to accommodate women seeking university places in 2003 by accepting those with lower grades, IRIN learnt on Tuesday. "The Afghan government has decided to give more opportunity to girls for university education as they were deprived of learning for over five years during Taliban regime," the deputy minister of higher education, Prof Gholam Muhyioddin Dariz, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "A commission has been made to monitor examination results and give more chance for girls," he said, adding that a general decision had been made to provide greater opportunities for women to receive higher education. Dariz's comments follow last week's university entrance examinations in Kabul. Of the 4,200 participants vying for places for the start of the new term in March, 1,334 were girls, he noted. Nationwide, 16,900 students between the ages of 18 and 25 sat the examination, and thousands of girls are expected to attend universities across the country this year. Of the seven universities operating in Afghanistan today, there are two in Kabul, followed by one each in Nangarhar, Kandahar, Herat, Balkh and Khowst provinces. While the education ministry was unable to provide exact figures on the number of females who actually participated nationwide, the Kabul-based Hawriwa newspaper on Sunday reported that of the 1,050 who sat the examination in the western city of Herat, 426 had been female. Fereshteh Adib, one of hundreds of thousands of girls who had been banned from attending school by the Taliban, was overjoyed at the prospect of being able to attend university. Having sat last Tuesday's entrance examination, the 22-year-old told IRIN that Afghan women welcomed the special arrangements made for them in a country where they had been deprived for so long. "Gender equality is not enough. There should be a compromise for girls," she said. "It is hard to fill the gap of five years of isolation, which badly affected our level of understanding," she added, lambasting the Taliban for depriving women of their basic rights. Other students also welcomed the move, but urged the authorities to focus on providing better facilities too. "You have to either accept the too old and impractical methods of government universities or just stay at home," Spogzmai Daqiq, told IRIN. The 26-year-old complained that all the university offered at present were classrooms and teachers who insisted on laborious note-taking. "There are no reference books, labs or proper library at the university. I really like using computer hardware and the Internet, but there is no faculty or proper section for that at Kabul University," she said. She also noted that she had been compelled to opt to study engineering even though it had not been her first choice of subject. Although the government is making every effort to try and get girls and women back into education, there are also security concerns which have recently affected enrolment figures in schools and universities - predominantly in the provinces. In November 2002, the international media reported attacks on four schools in northern and southern Afghanistan and to the south of Kabul. Although there had been no injuries, the incidents left students - particularly women - feeling vulnerable. In some cases, leaflets containing threats against women working and failing to wear the burka, or traditional Islamic dress covering a woman's body from head to foot, and against girls attending school had been pinned to buildings before the attacks took place. "Girls are scared and concerned about their security," Dariz said, adding that most of the girls he had talked to were worried about coming to university without wearing the burka.