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HomeWorld‘Professor exodus’: Afghanistan’s brightest minds are fleeing Taliban rule, again

‘Professor exodus’: Afghanistan’s brightest minds are fleeing Taliban rule, again

Afghan professors say they're fleeing not only because of ideological and safety issues, but also due to drastic salary cuts and loss of govt benefits like housing schemes and pensions.

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New Delhi: On 16 July, the body of Mumtaz Sherzai, a professor at Khost University and a former prosecutor, was found with signs of beatings and torture. International groups noted that he had been “highly vulnerable as a target of the Taliban”. A month prior, Nematullah Wali, a professor in Jalalabad, was gunned down.

Such killings have underlined how dangerous the environment in Afghanistan has become for highly educated individuals since the Taliban takeover last August. And it’s in the midst of this that a BBC report published earlier this month found that roughly 400 professors from three of Afghanistan’s top universities have fled the country since last August.

ThePrint spoke to experts and Afghan scholars who termed the phenomenon a “professor exodus”.

They added that professors are fleeing not only because of ideological and safety issues, but also because they stopped receiving government benefits such as housing schemes and pensions, and saw their salaries dramatically reduced after the Taliban takeover.

Most Afghan professors have fled to the USA, the UK, Europe, and East Asia by transiting through neighbouring Iran.

‘Fourth professor exodus in Afghan history’

Speaking to ThePrint, Aziz Amin — a former principal secretary to Afghanistan’s ousted president, Ashraf Ghani — who has taken asylum in the UK, said the “exodus” was the fourth of its kind.

“We saw a similar exodus of professors when the Soviets invaded the country in 1979, when the Mujahideen came to power from 1992 to 1994, and when the Taliban took over from 1996 to 2001, and now again in 2021,” he told ThePrint.

Amin estimated that the number of professors fleeing the country could double by next year to 800.

“The Taliban isn’t inclined towards well-educated individuals. They prefer people educated in religious madrasas,” Amin remarked.

Apart from making dramatic changes to school education — including shutting down schools for girls above sixth grade — experts said the Taliban wants to overhaul higher education, too. In September, Taliban education minister Sheikh Molvi Noorullah Munir said PhDs and master’s degrees weren’t valuable.

Lark Escobar, a US-based human security specialist and evacuation coordinator, who was handling Sherzai’s case, said infighting within the Taliban is delaying a consensus on policies.

“The Taliban are trying to make their own education system but haven’t come to a consensus yet. Different factions are competing for power and there is no agreement on policies as yet,” she told ThePrint.


Also Read: In Delhi, the only school for Afghan refugees struggles to find space


‘Abroad-educated are major targets’

Sayed Ziauddin Hashami, 44, former assistant professor of agriculture at Bamyan University, who now lives in New Zealand, said foreign-educated professors are “major targets” for the Taliban.

“Some professors have contacts with international NGOs which could be used against them too,” he added.

Hashami first escaped to Iran, and from there to New Zealand in January. He estimated that out of Bamyan University’s 200-odd professors, 20-25 have fled.

Kabul University, the largest in Afghanistan, has reportedly lost roughly 250 professors out of a total of 820.

Mahmood Marhoon, professor of literature at Kabul University who now lives in the US, claimed that when the Taliban came into power, his monthly salary of 45,000 Afghani (Rs 40,383) was nearly halved to 27,000 Afghani (Rs 24,230).

“It wasn’t only the reduction of salary. We have seen in the past how the Taliban clamps down on academia so I knew I didn’t have much of a future if I stayed. My wife was also a target as she worked in the Ashraf Ghani government,” Marhoon told ThePrint.

(This is an updated version of the copy.)

(Edited by Siddarth Muralidharan)


Also Read: Most Americans support taking in Afghan refugees but oppose the Taliban, finds survey


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