Claims of Afghan Professors’ Dismissal and Hiring of Pakistani Lecturers in Universities

Abdul Karim Totakhil, former head of Paktia University, has alleged that the Taliban administration, using various pretexts, has dismissed professional Afghan professors from Kabul University and other educational institutions, replacing them with Pakistani lecturers. According to Totakhil, he published on his Facebook page a letter from the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education approving the hiring of three Pakistani lecturers. This letter is presented as evidence of a new policy in recruiting academic staff. Totakhil states that Afghan professors have faced widespread restrictions, occasional arrests, and dismissals over minor reasons, while Pakistani lecturers have been exempt from such pressures. He describes this approach as discriminatory and damaging to the country’s education system. Based on the letter’s contents, each Pakistani lecturer receives a monthly salary of 180,000 Afghanis—a figure that, he says, starkly contrasts with the situation of Afghan professors, whose salaries the Taliban initially set at only 5,000 Afghanis and have now stopped paying altogether. Since the Taliban’s return to power, hundreds of university professors across the country have either been forced to migrate or dismissed under various pretexts. Some have left Afghanistan to secure educational futures for their children, a trend that has increased concerns about the weakening of higher education and brain drain in the country.