By: Saida Ahmadi
Although no one ignores the importance of modern education and other academic disciplines such as criminology, police departments, general sciences, and … alongside the religious education for women, there needs to be some special measures to be considered in an Islamic and cultural society.
There are different ways in this respect as separating school buildings of male and female students, though some areas currently have separate buildings, providing protected environment for girls or segregation of classes based on gender in the same building.
On the other hand, the schools can hire old teachers for small girls and as far as the senior female students are concerned, it is important that their studying periods should be short and brief, whether it is for modern education or religious studies, because women do not have much time for regular education and the conditions for them are harsh sometimes.
Therefore, it would be better that they attend the regular schools up to grade six. Afterwards, they can be provided with a special three-year curriculum. In this curriculum, all those subjects should be abandoned not necessary for women. Instead, the curriculum should be composed of subjects that are either important for medical field or play a crucial role in women’s general life.
Given the current circumstances, women are only seemed to be necessary in medical fields. Therefore, even if there are some subjects in the medical faculty that are not crucial for women, it would be better to make them optional for medical students.
However, it is important to note that after the new curriculum is prepared and implemented, those aspects, not key in medical field, should not be severely focused in the Kankoor (entry) test for female students. No wonder, other faculties are not important for women anyway.
Afghan people should consider the importance of this issue, i.e. they should never be influenced by the media propaganda. Instead, they should be aware of what the people need the most and the overall religious and cultural background and structure of the country should be kept in mind.
Due to the more than four decade long war in the country, women should be equipped with skills that can help them become breadwinners for their families and supportive pillar for the future of their children. In this regard, faculties such as economics, computer science, literature, and other social and business disciplines can play an important role in economic life of women.
Finally, officials of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) have times and again stressed that the country direly needs women experts in every discipline. Recently, the reopening of public universities in some areas of the country for both male and female students evidently show that the IEA government is fully committed to providing education and academic opportunities for the daughters of Afghanistan.
