Inside Afghanistan’s Secret Schools for Girls

What the report says

The New York Times World reports on efforts inside Afghanistan to keep girls’ education alive despite Taliban restrictions. According to the Times’ journalists, classrooms continue to operate in secret as students, teachers and parents resist the ban that has barred millions of Afghan girls from formal schooling. The reporting focuses on how these hidden lessons are taking place and on the people involved in sustaining them.

The article describes a pattern of quiet defiance rather than an organized public campaign. It centers on girls who want to learn, teachers who are willing to instruct them and families that help them attend classes despite the risk of punishment or scrutiny under Taliban rule. The report underscores that this is happening in Afghanistan, where the education restrictions have reshaped daily life for many families.

The issue matters because access to schooling has become one of the clearest measures of the Taliban’s broader restrictions on women and girls. Beyond the immediate classroom stakes, the story points to long-term consequences for literacy, opportunity and social participation. More generally, secret schooling has appeared in other restrictive settings as a form of civil resistance, but the specific details here are limited to the Times’ account of Afghanistan.