At a Tuesday briefing on its annual report, the Taliban-run National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) said that enrollment at private universities had fallen by 4 percent over the past year, while enrollment at public universities had risen by 2 percent.
Ismatullah Hakimi, Taliban’s deputy head of the statistics authority, said that 115,991 students were enrolled in public universities in solar year 1403 (20 March 2024 to 21 March 2025), while 75,307 attended private institutions.
The agency also reported that Afghanistan’s civil service employs about 517,000 people.
The figures provided by the Taliban include male students enrolled in public and private universities as women are banned from pursuing higher education since December 2022.
Before the takeover in 2021, female students made up a significant portion of the country’s student body. In 2020, roughly 36,500 women were enrolled in higher education, out of a total of 174,000 students across public and private universities, according to earlier government data.
The Taliban official added that about 1.4 million Afghans returned from Pakistan and Iran last year, either voluntarily or after being deported. This comes as Iran has significantly increased the deportation of Afghan migrants since the start of July. Many families who return worry about the future of their daughters as they remain banned from secondary and higher education in Afghanistan.
