The Taliban has taken a terrible toll on the education of girls -- and boys as well

Afghan school boys wear Taliban-imposed uniforms of turbans and long tunics in a school in Herat. The government has put more focus on religious education since returning to power on August 15, 2021. Mohsen Karimi/AFP/via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Mohsen Karimi/AFP/via Getty Images By Grade 11, Hashmat Mubariz had stopped attending school regularly. He was still officially enrolled. The Taliban had not barred him from the classroom, as they had barred his two sisters. But Mubariz, who later taught himself English, became an English instructor and now hosts a podcast and helps run a nongovernmental organization, said the school he once attended no longer felt like a place of learning. "I felt I was wasting my time at school rather than learning," he said. Before the Taliban returned to power five years ago — on August 15, 2021 — Mubariz remembered his public school as friendly and relatively open. Students studied English, science, mathematics, biology and literature alongside religious subjects. They could speak in class, share their opinions and ask questions. The school was not perfect, he said, but it felt safe and focused on learning. Mubariz, 19, says after the ...