Expulsion of professors; Academic disaster in Afghanistan universities.
In more than three years of its rule, the Taliban group has expelled a large number of experienced and influential professors from Afghan universities by implementing targeted and reductive policies.
Professor Obaidullah Salehi, a former professor at Kabul University who received his doctorate from one of the most prestigious universities in Malaysia and taught for more than 10 years, is an example of this disaster.
He was fired because of these policies and is now forced to sell watermelons on the streets of Kabul.
Relatives of the professor complained on Monday, July 28, about his unfair dismissal by the Taliban, calling the move symbolic of a wider trend that has targeted non-Pashtun and female professors in particular.
Reports indicate that many professors in different provinces of the country have also faced a similar fate and are enduring a difficult situation.
Instead, the Taliban have replaced these specialized cadres with their own forces and graduates of religious schools;
a move that has severely degraded the quality of higher education and pushed universities towards extremism.
Experts warn that continuing this trend will seriously jeopardize the academic and professional futures of Afghan youth and threaten the intellectual health of society.
Firing teachers and replacing them with inexperienced and ideological recruits is a disaster that could set the country’s education system back for years and delay Afghanistan’s development.
