After Years Of Education Ban, What Will Afghanistan Look Like In 2030?
A girl due to enter seventh grade in 2022 is now about 17 or 18. Had things continued normally, she would have finished school and be preparing for the university entrance exam.
A girl due to enter seventh grade in 2022 is now about 17 or 18. Had things continued normally, she would have finished school and be preparing for the university entrance exam.
But five years of education bans have changed the course of her life. She still has no 12th-grade certificate, and the path to university and many job opportunities remains closed.
If the ban on girls’ education continues, Afghanistan could face shortages of thousands of female teachers, doctors and midwives by 2030, with consequences that will reshape education, the economy and the health system.
This report examines how this deprivation could affect education, health, the economy, the labour market, the generation of professional women, and children raised by mothers denied access to education by 2030.
Hundreds of Thousands of Women and Girls Deprived
Reports by UNESCO and UNICEF, both UN agencies, show that 2.2 million adolescent girls in Afghanistan are currently denied access to secondary education.
UNICEF estimates that every additional year the ban continues will prevent about 250,000 more girls from continuing their education. If the restrictions remain in place, more than two million additional girls could be denied education beyond primary school by 2030.
Mirwais Balkhi, former education minister of Afghanistan, says the continuation of the current situation is deepening both the educational gap between women and men and Afghanistan’s knowledge gap with the rest of the world each year.
According to him, the divide between women and men, and between Afghanistan and the world, is widening.
Balkhi says the exclusion of girls, the declining number of female teachers, limited alternative education and the expansion of ideological instruction have weakened Afghanistan’s academic and educational capacity.
He believes Afghanistan’s education system has undergone a structural collapse, with the Taliban reducing the concept of education largely to basic literacy in reading and writing, while many children fail to acquire even these fundamental skills.
Abdul Ghafoor Arezo, Afghanistan’s former ambassador to Tajikistan, also told Afghanistan International that hostility towards knowledge may not endure indefinitely, but it can hold back a society’s progress for years.
Arezo said that because of Taliban restrictions on women, Afghanistan is heading towards deeper backwardness and greater darkness by 2030, while its civic and academic achievements are being lost.
These warnings come as Afghanistan had been on a very different path before the Taliban returned to power. The number of female university students rose from about 5,000 in 2001 to more than 100,000 by 2021. Many were only months away from graduating.
That progress has now stopped. Even if universities reopen, the generation that was expected to enter the workforce between 2021 and 2030 will no longer exist in the same form. The first signs of this gap are expected to emerge in education and healthcare.
UNESCO has raised concerns extending far beyond the next four years, saying that if the suspension of women’s higher education continues, it could reduce Afghanistan’s economic potential by about $9.6 billion by 2066.
That figure is close to two-thirds of the country’s current gross domestic product.
A recent UNICEF assessment shows that if the restrictions continue, Afghanistan could lose about 20,000 female teachers by 2030 through retirement and migration.
The agency has also warned of the possible loss of 5,400 female health workers. Together, these workers account for nearly a quarter of the female workforce employed in those two sectors in 2021.
Who Will Treat Afghanistan’s Women?
Restrictions on girls’ education have not only emptied classrooms. They have also halted the training of thousands of female doctors, midwives, nurses and other health workers at a time when Afghanistan’s healthcare system needs them more than ever.
In many parts of Afghanistan, particularly rural areas, women seek treatment only at health facilities where female staff are available. As a result, the shortage of female doctors and midwives is not merely an educational issue; it directly affects millions of women’s access to healthcare.
In 2023, the Taliban also stopped women from studying at medical institutes.
Dr Abdul Hakim Tamanna, former head of public health in Herat and a senior public health specialist, says the healthcare crisis will become visible well before 2030.
He says some female health workers will reach retirement age. Others will migrate because of restrictions and difficult living conditions, while some will leave their jobs under growing work pressure.
According to him, the central problem is that no women are being trained to replace them.
Rising Maternal and Infant Deaths
Afghanistan already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
The World Health Organisation says one woman dies during childbirth in Afghanistan every two hours.
UNICEF has warned that a decline in the number of female doctors and midwives could lead to 1,600 additional maternal deaths and more than 3,500 additional infant deaths.
Dr Tamanna says the absence of female health workers deprives women of pregnancy and childbirth services, treatment for illnesses and preventive care.
According to him, rising maternal deaths, infant deaths and disabilities among women also break families apart. A child who loses their mother during childbirth faces greater risks related to nutrition, health, education and family support.
He describes the outlook for Afghanistan’s health system in 2030, if the current situation continues, as a humanitarian catastrophe and says the long-term cost of illness, death and disability among women could reach tens of billions of dollars.
The World Health Organisation says nearly half of all deaths in Afghanistan are caused by non-communicable diseases, and their share is expected to increase by 2030.
Despite this, the Taliban does not allow women to study midwifery or nursing. The UN Population Fund has estimated that if the ban on girls’ education continues, Afghanistan could face a shortage of about 18,000 midwives and more than 7,000 female doctors by 2030.
This shortage would reduce the health system’s capacity to provide services to millions of women.
Afghanistan’s Economy Becomes More Male-Dominated
Experts say banning women from education will affect Afghanistan’s economy for years. A country where half the population is denied education and many employment opportunities loses a major share of its productive, innovative and economic potential.
An economics professor at an Afghan university, who asked not to be named because of security concerns, says excluding women from education shrinks Afghanistan’s human capital.
He says educating women is an economic investment. An educated woman can work, increase household income, build a business and contribute to production and services.
According to him, excluding women from education makes families more dependent on the income of a single man. Illness, unemployment, disability or the death of that man can push the entire family into poverty.
World Bank data shows that women’s labour force participation in Afghanistan stood at about 5.1 per cent in 2025, compared with 69.8 per cent for men. Women accounted for only 6.8 per cent of the country’s total workforce.
UN Women says 78 per cent of young Afghan women are neither in education, employment nor skills training. The figure for young men is 20 per cent.
The UN Development Programme estimates that restrictions imposed on women and girls caused nearly $920 million in losses to Afghanistan’s economy between 2024 and 2026, equivalent to about 5.8 per cent of the country’s GDP.
UNICEF has also estimated that the direct annual economic loss caused by restrictions on women’s education and economic participation is at least $84 million.
The economics professor says the situation also reduces employment opportunities for men.
When a school or health centre becomes weak or closes because of the lack of female teachers or health workers, male employees, drivers, guards, shopkeepers and related service companies also lose income.
According to him, Afghanistan’s economy will become even more dependent on foreign aid by 2030.
Mothers’ Deprivation Harms Children’s Opportunities
Years of educational deprivation for girls could also affect the children they will have in the future.
Research by the World Bank, UNESCO and UNICEF shows that a mother’s education is one of the most important factors determining children’s health, nutrition and education.
Women with more education generally seek healthcare earlier, are more likely to send their children to school and invest more in their nutrition and development.
UNICEF analysis shows a strong relationship between mothers’ education and children’s vaccination, healthy height and weight, and access to antenatal care.
The agency has warned that declining levels of education among women could worsen the health of mothers and children.
A former female lecturer at Kabul University who still lives in Afghanistan says that in a household where the mother has no independent income, all expenses depend on a single breadwinner.
Such families are more vulnerable to unemployment, illness, drought and displacement.
She said family poverty can also force a child out of school. In this way, denying education to today’s girl may mean fewer opportunities for tomorrow’s child.
According to her, in poor families, when girls are denied education and employment, pressure for early marriage also increases.
The United Nations estimates that the education ban could increase child marriage by 25 per cent and put about 37 per cent of Afghan girls at risk of marriage before the age of 18.
She said girls excluded from school face the same unanswered question every day: when will they be able to return to a normal life?
A UN Women assessment shows that during the first three months of 2024, about 21 per cent of women surveyed had not had a single social interaction with a woman outside their own family.
This isolation was reported more frequently in urban areas.
Migration Deepens the Shortage of Specialists
Those interviewed by Afghanistan International believe the country is losing two generations at the same time: a new generation of women denied access to specialist education, and part of the existing generation of skilled women and men who are leaving the country.
Dr Tamana says work pressure, restrictions and the absence of a clear future are pushing some educated women to leave Afghanistan.
He says families that can afford to do so are also moving abroad to educate their daughters.
As these families leave, Afghanistan simultaneously loses knowledge, experience, capital and labour.
What Will Afghanistan Look Like in 2030?
Afghanistan in 2030 will still carry the effects of five years of girls being denied education, even if schools and universities reopen before then.
Reopening educational institutions could prevent the crisis from becoming even worse, but it cannot erase the years already lost.
Recovering from those lost years would require a broad programme of remedial education, returning women to universities, urgently training teachers and health workers, and creating employment opportunities.
Basir Ahmad Danishyar, a university lecturer who has since moved to Germany, says that if the current situation continues, Afghanistan will lose a large share of its human capital and academic capacity.
The country will face declining knowledge production, reduced innovation and increasing difficulty in training skilled professionals.
Universities and higher education institutions will face shortages of lecturers, researchers and specialised staff.
Migration will increase, development indicators will deteriorate, and valuable opportunities for sustainable development, particularly in knowledge, research and scientific production, will be lost further.
For many countries, 2030 is expected to be a milestone for assessing global development goals. Countries are working to expand equal access to education, healthcare, technology and employment.
Countries across the region are training increasing numbers of female doctors, engineers, researchers and specialists every year.
Balkhi says that under such circumstances, Afghanistan will be pushed to the scientific margins of the region.
In his view, a system that does not nurture critical thinking, skills and specialised knowledge cannot prepare the human resources required for development.
Every year of delay increases the number of girls who grow beyond school age and take on new family responsibilities.
