Research by scholars about girls’ education on: Nadim

KABUL (Pajhwok): Acting Higher Education Minister Sheikh Nada Mohammad Nadim on Sunday said the research of religious scholars about women’s and girls’ higher education was ongoing.

Addressing a program here about his ministry’s one year’s performance, Nadim said if found legitimate, women would be allowed to pursue their higher education, otherwise it would remain suspended.

The minister explained his ministry’s achievements at the Government Information and Media Center in Kabul.

He said the leadership of the Islamic Emirate gave the ministry 5000 new vacancies last year.

In the last one year, he said, 131 educational curricula were finalized and sent to the leadership for approval.

The period saw the educational sector strengthening in the country as 640 academic staffs were recruited through open competition and 1317 employees assigned to administrative, professional and specialized positions.

Responding to reporters’ questions about girls’ education, he said: “The issue of girls’ education keeps surfacing again and again. I give a short answer that this question is suspended until further notice.”

He said: "The main thing is in times when women’s day comes, they all make a noise…to a certain level to assume that female education is obligatory and calls it a great injustice with the people of Afghanistan.”

“The first problem is that everyone should not speak like a mufti in these matters or give permission and solutions to these issues. The Islamic system has proven to the people that in every field they brought orders in accordance with the Sharia”.

He said whatever they did and told the nation about women’s education would not be in conflict with Islam and Afghanistan’s traditions.

However, Nadim said women’s education was a sensitive issue and had many dimensions and it was not possible to make an urgent decision in weeks and months.

He also said he could not say hundred percent that one day women would be allowed to pursue their higher education.

“A research by scholars in this regard is ongoing and if it is proved that the education of females is permissible in this form, it is believed that it will be allowed and if the research was that it should be suspended, it will be suspended.”

Engineer Sardar Wali Salehi, head of the development of scientific programs at the Ministry of Higher Education, said nine construction projects related to the ministry were completed in the past one year.

He said the projects included laboratories, research farms, libraries, computer labs and classrooms. Six renovation projects are in progress in the center and provinces.

According to him, last year, 199 authored, 207 researched and 215 translated scientific works, 769 scientific articles in international journals and 531 scientific articles had been published in national journals.

He adds that six international and 40 national journals had been invented and started to publish the articles of teachers and academic staff.

Salehi said: “Ten master programs and two new faculties have been created in private educational institutions. 11 doctoral and 26 master's programs and 13 new faculties and 86 new departments at the undergraduate level have been created in various Emirati educational institutions.”

Ministry of Higher Education spokesman Ziaullah Hashmi, said for the first time, diplomas, transcripts and academic certificates were printed in the country.

Hashmi said they evaluated educational documents of 2212 students who studied abroad. They included 145 doctoral degrees, 1163 master's degrees, 821 bachelor's degrees and 83 specialization degrees.

He said nearly 190,000 students were studying in all the universities and higher education institutions of the country and the capacity to absorb 82,105 students this year has been determined.

Director of Information, Broadcasting and Public Relations at the Ministry of Higher Education, Engineer Rohullah Rohani said that through monitoring, evaluation, control and audit, 22 million afghanis which had been lost due to some accounting errors of the previous administration, had been recovered as a result of accurate calculations.

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