The Afghan Taliban has rejected reports of a conditional agreement to send female students from the country to Pakistan for higher education. The reaction comes after Pakistan revealed the number of Afghan students who had appeared in tests to compete for scholarships.
Ministry of Higher Education of the Interim Afghan Government said in a statement that no agreement has been signed with Pakistan or any other country to send female students for higher education.
A report by Voice of America had claimed that Taliban gave permission to female students to study in Pakistani universities in the presence of a mahram (male guardian).
The report had also claimed that students living as refugees in Pakistan have already appeared for the scholarship tests and students living in Afghanistan would appear for them soon. VoA had quoted unnamed sources to claim that Pakistan’s government had even communicated its gratitude and confirmed that male guardians would be issued visas.
The controversy comes after Pakistan confirmed that thousands of students had registered for online and physical tests for the second batch of Allama Iqbal Scholarships scheduled for January 25 and 26.
Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Mohammad Sadiq had said in a post on X that a ‘significant’ number of Afghan students had appeared in tests for the Allama Iqbal Scholarship.
The ambassador had revealed that students residing in Pakistan would have to appear in the physical test while students in Afghanistan could take the test online.
Sadiq had also revealed that a total of total of 20,806 students, including 15,791 males and 5,015 females had registered for the test from ‘all over Afghanistan’.
Providing a breakdown of the applicants, Sadiq said that 14,244 students had applied for graduate programs, 5,946 students had applied for master’s programs while 616 students were vying for PhD programs.
The selected applicants will undergo zero-semester training NUTECH and NUCES FAST from March this year, according to Sadiq.
The Allama Iqbal Scholarship program was originally introduced in 2009 and was aimed at improving ties between the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The program’s latest batch was announced in October 2024.
