RASC News Agency: The Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has issued a directive mandating that all private universities obtain government approval before appointing faculty members. Sources confirmed on Thursday, January 30, that the Taliban have formally instructed private universities that, henceforth, all academic appointments will be subject to selection and oversight by the ministry. According to these sources, the Taliban seek to systematically embed their affiliated clerics into private universities. In recent weeks, the regime has dismissed dozens of university professors across multiple provinces, replacing them with religious scholars loyal to their ranks.
Since the Taliban’s return to power, a significant number of university professors have either fled the country or been forcibly removed from their positions. The group has already filled senior government posts from ministers and deputies to department heads and directors with individuals from its own ethnic and ideological circles. Now, its campaign of ideological control has expanded to the private sector. Previously, the Taliban had planted operatives within non-governmental organizations to monitor and report on their activities. However, they are now enforcing a more aggressive strategy: after replacing professors at public universities with clerics, they are extending their grip over private institutions by imposing their loyalists into key academic roles.
This latest decree underscores the Taliban’s broader mission to reshape Afghanistan’s institutional framework along rigid religious and ethnic lines. It further consolidates a reality in which no Afghanistani citizen can secure employment or professional standing without explicit approval from the Taliban’s intelligence apparatus and ideological gatekeepers.
