Education in Afghanistan includes K-12 and higher education which is supervised by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). In the last 13 years, with the support from international community, thousands of schools have been built and millions of children and youths both males and females are attending educational institutes. Nonetheless, a major portion of Afghan population still does not have access to education as there is either no school or the schools have been closed down by Taliban.

Taliban’s anti-education activities does not limit to barring boys and specially girls from going to schools but they are also involved in kidnapping, target killing and beheading MoE employees including teachers. On Tuesday, Afghan official reported one more such incident. Based on reports, 25 lecturers of Kandahar University along 10 of their students have been abducted by unknown gunmen in Qarabagh district of Ghazni province while they were travelling from Kandahar to Kabul.

The reason for why they have abducted is nothing except that they were involved in educating the sons and daughters of the nation. While their whereabouts remains unclear, no one knows what fate is awaiting them.

One of the dangerous routes in Afghanistan is the Kabul-Kandahar highway where Taliban and other groups of militants are actively involved in planting IEDs, kidnapping and attacking military convoys. It is feared that the lecturers have been abducted by Taliban and they might be tortured or even killed like 100s of other government employees.

Militants have been trying to instill fear in students, teachers and education employees by attacking schools and killing education employees across the country. This is causing huge damage to the nascent educational development in the country. No doubt, Taliban’s such actions are based on their narrow and extreme mindset towards the world.

After their government was toppled in 2001, they have intensively tried to prevent Afghans from getting education by acid/gas attacks on students, setting fire to schools and threatening people to keep their children away from education. Regretfully, government’s position in preventing damages caused by Taliban to the education sector of Afghanistan has been quite pathetic.

The kidnapping of university lecturers and students must be taken seriously. Expecting that the Taliban might spare them does not hold much weight. Afghan security forces must take immediate action for freeing the abducted teachers and their students.