KABUL: Kabul’s first-ever Women University has a logo that resembles a butterfly from a Japanese anime, a woman’s profile made airborne by pink and purple wings.
Balay, ma maithwanim, says the university’s motto, scrawled in bubblegum pink on a chocolate-brown gate. Step inside and the meaning of the university’s logo and the motto, “Yes, we can do”, that sounds like a slogan borrowing its essence from the eighties feminist anthem “Sisters are doing it for themselves” made popular by Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin becomes evident.
In the white-washed halls, echoing classrooms and verdant lawns of the university is evident the spirit of young, determined women focusing on ‘works by women for women’. “My mother died of a minor disease because she refused to go see a male doctor,” says Dr Azizullah Amir, the founder of the university who named it Morra meaning mother in Pashto. Pashtuns are an ethnic group that puts much stock in notions of honour and purdah. “Her dilemma compelled me to consider education for the people, particularly women, who can serve the nation. Only women professionals can deal with issues faced by women and play a role in development of the country”.
The Morra Educational Complex’ website says it is Afghanistan’s “most unique complex”, a claim that ring true if one looks back at the country’s recent history when a higher education institution for women, let alone an all-women school like this, would not have been possible under the decades of war and conflict in the country that setback the lot of women and women rights.
The Afghan Ministry of Education estimates that there are presently 8.4 million students (39 percent of which are girls) in primary and secondary schools which, according to the Brookings Institute, is an impressive increase from an estimated 1 million students in 2001. “However, around 3.3 million children (about 32 percent of the school-age population), the majority of which are girls, remain out of school Limited education among adults in Afghanistan poses a significant challenge, the share of the population over 25 years that has completed any level of formal education is less than seven per cent for men and just three per cent for women.”
In keeping with a vision of its founder informed by his mother’s illness, the Morra Educational Complex focuses on medical and higher education for women. Spread over a vast hilly terrain in the quiet suburbs of Kabul, the Complex also houses a kindergarten and high school for girls. Established in 2015, the institute was inaugurated in May 2016 by Rula Ghani, the First Lady of Afghanistan.
In her inauguration address Rula Ghani said the country should not wait for donations for education and development. Rula Ghani lauded the efforts of individuals and groups at home and abroad for promotion of women and Afghan society in her inauguration address. “Religion calls upon us to educate our children, both girls and boys, so it is our duty to send our daughters to education institutes,” she said.
While women and female education made significant strides under the rule of former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, he was also been criticized by women rights groups for endorsing a “code of conduct” in 2012 issued by the country’s Ulema Council. Among its rules are some that say “women should not travel without a male guardian and should not mingle with strange men in places such as schools, markets and offices.”
When asked about women’s progress in higher education, Hamid Karzai told News Lens Pakistan, “35 per cent of women have secured seats in higher education institutions, 27 per cent in politics and 22 percent in civil services. Women are half of our population and we need them to equally progress with men.”
According to the Afghan Minister for Higher Education Farida Momand, the Ministry or Higher Education of Afghanistan is doing its best to increase the ratio of girls’ education in the country. She told News Lens Pakistan, “The number of girls appearing in higher education admission tests has increased. We are providing resources for better education and it would surely result in giving us a young lot of professional and learned ladies soon.”
She said Kabul based offices, professional centers, non-governmental organizations and business centers now have professional Afghan women working in different capacities. Kabul University, the country’s chief co-ed high education institute, has 76,000 students – 33,000 of them female students, according to M Wahid Gharwal, Professor and Dean of Journalism Faculty of Kabul University.
However, in a country where education for all is a big challenge, education remains elusive for millions of women for want to access and lack of education institutions. Hamid Zazai, a rights activist who works for Mediothek, an Afghan-German organization working on peace and democracy, said the government must focus on provision of quality education and involvement of women in education sector. “Several Afghan investors who returned after 2001 have invested in education but private education remains out of reach of poor and needy people whereas government institutions are in still in a nascent stage of development.”
Bashir Baran, a former student of the computer science department at Polytechnic University of Kabul said Afghanistan was disturbed by war and even now faces conflict. He said it would take time to have a well-established education system for men and women. At present, he said, the country’s education institutes lacked trained staff, laboratories, books as well as quality food and drinking water in hostels.
“I completed my earlier education from Peshawar as a refugee child because we had no educational institutions and female university in Kabul,” says Sadaf Rehmani, a faculty member who teaches business administration at the Morra Educational Complex. “My parents would not let me study at a co-ed institute. Now the inauguration of a women university would surely attract girls from families following conservative norms”.
This article originally appeared in News Lens and has been reproduced with permission