The Taliban-controlled National Examination Authority (NEA) on Saturday announced the results of Afghanistan's 2022 university entrance (Kankor) exam. In a surprise, no Afghan girl made it to the top 10, despite them having aced the exams over the last two years.
This year, less number of students had appeared for the exam as compared to previous years.
In 2021, when the Taliban had not taken over Afghanistan and not put restrictions of education of girls, the girls had topped the Kankor exams.
According to the NEA, a student from Herat province secured the first rank in the year's entrance exam.
With the Taliban assuming control of Afghanistan, schools for girls above the sixth grade were closed across the country, and no female student graduated from Afghanistan’s schools in the last year. In fact, apart from Taliban restrictions, girls have also faced terrorist attacks while studying. A suicide bombing rocked an educational center where preparations were on for the entrance exams in an area of the discriminated Shia Hazara minority in Kabul in September. Around 53 people were killed and 110 wounded in the attack, most of them girls and young women.
Kankor is an entrance exam for universities in Afghanistan. Every year, hundreds of thousands of high school graduates take this exam to continue their studies at public, governmental, or private universities.
