RASC News Agency: Recent developments from the northern province of Kunduz indicate that the Taliban have initiated the transformation of the Kunduz Teacher Training Directorate into a jihadi Madrasa an alarming shift that has triggered concern among educators and civil society figures. This latest move exemplifies a growing pattern of ideological repurposing of Afghanistan’s educational infrastructure under Taliban rule. According to educators interviewed by RASC, the Taliban issued a swift directive ordering all staff and faculty to vacate the premises and relocate to a new facility situated in a more remote and less accessible area. The original building, situated near Kunduz University in a key urban district, has reportedly been seized due to its strategic location and expansive structure ideal for converting into a center for religious indoctrination.
Officials from the Taliban-administered Teacher Professional Development Directorate in Kunduz confirmed the relocation but refused to provide further details. However, local sources suggest the motive behind the move is to reconfigure the site into a Madrasa designed to promote the Taliban’s extremist religious ideology at the expense of professional and secular teacher training. This is not an isolated case. In recent years, the Taliban have repeatedly converted official educational facilities and historic sites into Madrasa compounds, marginalizing modern education in favor of a rigid theological framework. These jihadi seminaries, often replacing established institutions, deprive Afghanistani youth of access to balanced, contemporary curricula posing a serious threat to the country’s intellectual and socio-economic future.
Statistics underscore this disturbing trend. While the number of formal public schools across Afghanistan hovers around 18,000, religious seminaries have surged to nearly 21,000. According to the Taliban’s Ministry of Education, more than one million children enrolled in these seminaries in 2024 alone, raising the total number of students in religious institutions to over 3.6 million. Educational experts warn that this shift could inflict lasting damage on Afghanistan’s fragile education system, obliterating the already delicate balance between modern and religious instruction. The emphasis on rigid dogma over professional education is expected to produce generations of youth indoctrinated with extremist ideologies, systematically excluding them from meaningful engagement in the global economy and civic life.
The case of the Kunduz Teacher Training Center exemplifies the Taliban’s broader strategy: not merely to reform Afghanistan’s educational landscape, but to reshape it into an echo chamber of its ideology. This calculated dismantling of secular educational foundations represents a strategic assault on intellectual freedom, critical thinking, and future nation-building capacity. In the absence of resistance, this trajectory threatens to turn Afghanistan into a hub of ideological isolation. Observers argue that continued international engagement with or funding for Taliban-controlled educational initiatives not only undermines global human rights principles, but risks enabling the deliberate destruction of Afghanistan’s educational legacy.
The international community now faces a pressing question: Will it remain complicit through silence and aid, or will it act to preserve the last vestiges of educational plurality in a country where teaching is being replaced by indoctrination?
