Taliban open aerospace and drone faculty while maintaining ban on women

The Taliban government has approved an aerospace and advanced systems engineering faculty with departments devoted to drones, aircraft, space engineering, radar and avionics, even as women and girls remain barred from Afghanistan’s universities.

Hafiz Ziaullah Hashimi, a spokesman for the Higher Education Ministry, told EFE that the Higher Education Council had approved several new faculties and expanded academic programs at universities across Afghanistan. The council is chaired by Higher Education Minister Mawlawi Neda Mohammad Nadeem.

The new faculty at Kabul Polytechnic University will include departments for unmanned aerial vehicles, drones and unmanned systems; aircraft engineering; aeronautical and space engineering; and radar and avionics engineering. The ministry also said it had created faculties and expanded existing programs in other universities.

Hashimi said the government plans to use qualified Afghan teachers for the new courses and hire foreign instructors where local expertise is unavailable. He said the programs aim to develop higher education and specialized fields that meet Afghanistan’s future needs, including aviation, aerospace, unmanned systems, radar, computing, medicine, agriculture and economics.

The announcement comes while the Higher Education Ministry remains one of the Taliban government’s most criticized institutions. Women and girls have been excluded from higher education for years, despite calls from the United Nations and the international community to restore their right to study.

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The main objective of these programs is to create opportunities for the development of higher education and specialized programs to meet Afghanistan’s future needs, particularly in aviation, aerospace, unmanned systems, radar, computing, medicine, agriculture, economics and other modern professional fields.