The Taliban’s Ministry of Education is not publicizing the statistics of graduates from religious schools. The ministry’s website and social media pages of this ministry show that for the past month, no information has been released about the graduation of students from jihadist and regular religious schools. Independent media outlets also have not reported on this matter. Concerns among citizens and the international community are growing over the increasing number of new Taliban recruits graduating from these extremist institutions.
Sources within the Taliban’s Ministry of Education indicate that although the group is continuously establishing religious schools in rural areas and districts, the Taliban have instructed the Islamic Education Directorate not to disclose information about the establishment of these schools or the number of graduates.
These sources specify that the publication of news and data about jihadist schools is prohibited by Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, while information on regular religious school graduates is banned by Habibullah Agha, the acting Minister of Education of the Taliban regime.
A list of graduates obtained by the Hasht-e Subh Daily shows that in the past 10 days, students have graduated from various jihadist religious schools across the country, but this information has not been made public by the Taliban.
The list, organized by province, reveals that Laghman Province leads in the number of graduates. According to the list received by the Hasht-e Subh Daily, in the past two weeks, 40 students graduated from Omar bin Khattab School, 40 from Pasha’i School, 25 from Faruqiya School, 25 from Na’maniya Darul Uloom, 30 from Kuchur Girls’ School, 18 from Ihyaul Quran Elishang School, 106 from Imdadul Uloom School, 30 from Abu Hurairah School, 13 from Darul Ahnaf School, and 30 from Jamiat Ulum Al-Quran School in Laghman province.
Additionally, 18 students graduated from Ziaul Ulum Muhammadiya School, 31 from Sayed Al-Shohada Hazrat Hamza School, 114 from Darul Quran School, 67 from Khalid bin Walid School, and 15 from Faruqiya School in Takhar Province.
In Badakhshan Province, 19 students graduated from Ahsanul Madaris School, 41 from Hazrat Bibi Sumayya School, 21 from Ummul Mu’minin Hazrat Aisha Siddiqa School, and 70 from Wais Qarn School. In Kabul, 52 students graduated from Fayz ul Quran School, 82 from Jamiat Islamiyah Muhammadiya School, 39 from Nauman bin Thabit School, and 81 from Abu Hurairah School.
The Hasht-e Subh Daily’s findings show that 31 students graduated from Darul Uloom Hazrat Hamza 21 from Sayed Al-Anbiya Hazrat Muhammad School in Maidan Wardak Province, 37 from Jaamiat Al-Salam School and 18 from Hazrat Aisha Siddiqa School in Balkh Province, and 103 from Jaamiat Najmuddin School and 10 from Jaamiat Ulum Islamiyah School in Baghlan Province.
According to this list, at least 380 students graduated in the past two weeks from religious schools in Nuristan, Farah, Kandahar, and Herat Provinces. Women and girls are also among the graduates of these Taliban religious schools.
Meanwhile, some students from religious schools report significant differences between their curriculum and that of regular schools. Elham (pseudonym), a student at a Taliban jihadist school in Maidan Wardak province, told the Hasht-e Subh Daily, “Our school’s curriculum is unique; our books, teachers, and learning environment are very different from non-jihadist schools.”
This student added, “Our teachers ask us daily who dreamed of the Prophet Muhammad last night so that I can give them the good news of paradise.” He is not regretful of his chosen path and aspires to be “a fully committed Muslim youth” in the future.
Previously, the Taliban had no issues publishing figures on graduates from religious institutions, but following internal and international reactions and concerns about brainwashing children and teenagers, the group has stopped sharing information on the activities and achievements of their religious schools.
In the year 2023, the Taliban’s Ministry of Education announced that there were 18,000 official and private religious schools across the country. However, Mullah Hibatullah, the group’s absent supreme leader, deemed this number insufficient and allocated 1,000 new teaching positions to religious schools, assigning two schools to each village. According to sources in the Ministry of Education, the Taliban spend most of the government budget on the construction, funding, and equipping of jihadist schools.
Recently, Rustam Emomali, the Speaker of the Parliament of Tajikistan, stated that the religious schools built by the Taliban in Afghanistan are training suicide bombers, turning the country once again into a center of terrorism.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
طالبان آمار مدرسهها و فارغان آنها را کتمان میکنند | روزنامه ۸صبح