British Universities offer Free Access To Online Courses For Afghan Women
Over 20 British universities have promised to provide free courses to Afghan women following the Taliban's ban on women attending universities in Afghanistan.
The government in Afghanistan declared last month that women would no longer be permitted to attend colleges and other higher education institutions. Institutions were instructed to begin enforcing the ban right away.
Through a partnership with FutureLearn, several British universities are now providing free access to online learning resources to Afghan women.
More than 1,200 courses from prestigious institutions will be available to girls and women with internet access, all for free.
About a quarter of the top 200 universities in the world have courses delivered through FutureLearn, a platform created by the Open University in 2012.
26 of the top 30 universities in the UK, including 21 of the 24 Russell Group institutions, are FutureLearn partners. Among them are Trinity College in Dublin, the Universities of Nottingham, York, Leeds, and London's Goldsmiths, as well as UCL.
All universities offer a variety of online courses through FutureLearn. The decision, according to Jo Johnson, chairman of FutureLearn, would act as a "lifeline" for those who want to learn.
“For girls and women who can access the internet and afford the time, this could be a lifeline,” he said. “While this is, of course no silver bullet — poor connectivity, poverty and language barriers mean many women may not be able to access the material — it can nonetheless play a valuable part in enabling women in Afghanistan to assert their inalienable human right to education."
The initiative to provide women with free access to education was praised by Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, president of the Open Society Foundation.
“The Taliban think the world has forgotten them; we mustn’t,” he said. “This commendable move by FutureLearn to open up its platform to women denied their rights under this regime will play a useful part in keeping education within reach of those with an internet connection.
“It is a welcome sign that our commitment to fighting for human rights for all Afghans remains strong.”
One of the Taliban's most recent moves to tighten restrictions on women's rights since taking control of Afghanistan following the US-led withdrawal from that country in 2021 is the decision to forbid women from pursuing higher education.
Both domestic and international protests have been sparked by it. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have requested that the decision be overturned. Australian, Canadian, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Netherlands, Norwegian, Spanish, Swiss, UK, US, and the High Representative of the EU have all strongly criticized the decision.
In a joint statement, they stated that all Afghans, including women and girls, must have the opportunity to fully, equally, and meaningfully participate in and contribute to the future and development of the country.
There are worries that the decision, which will impact up to 70,000 female students, could lead to the closure of 35 of Afghanistan's 140 private universities.
The ban has been defended by Nida Mohammad Nadim, one of the Taliban's ministers of higher education, who claims it is necessary to stop gender-sex intermingling in academic settings. He asserted that some concepts go against Afghan and Islamic values.