Taliban sack 23 professors and staff of Polytechnic University
The Taliban have dismissed at least 23 professors and staff at Kabul Polytechnic University in a systematic cleansing of educational institutions.
Reliable sources confirmed to the media on Sunday that 10 professors and 13 employees of the university were dismissed without giving specific reasons.
According to the sources, the Taliban chief at the university threatened the professors with academic privileges, including promotions, if they did not produce goods.
This is not the first case of professors being dismissed at the polytechnic. Earlier, there were reports that the Taliban had expelled dozens of male and female professors from the university. Taliban officials have not yet clarified the reasons for the expulsions.
While Afghanistan faces a severe shortage of specialists, the removal of experienced professors from universities, based on unscientific and political criteria, is leading the country’s higher education system to an irreparable collapse.
On the other hand, hundreds of women teachers who were deprived of teaching after the return of the Taliban are now in a psychological and economic crisis. Many of them have been forced to leave the country and are displaced around the world.
Academic freedom and human rights groups have repeatedly warned that continuing this trend will plunge Afghanistan’s academic future into complete darkness.
