More than half of Afghanistan's primary school-age children are not making it into a classroom. A joint report released on Wednesday, November 4, by the UN children's agency UNICEF and the UN educational, scientific and cultural organisation UNESCO says 53 percent of primary school-age children in the country are deprived of formal education.
The report says rapid population growth, restrictions on the education of girls and women, and insufficient investment have deepened the problems facing Afghanistan's education system. According to the two agencies, Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls and women are officially barred from education beyond the primary level.
As of October 2026, around 5,300 active learning centres were operating, teaching nearly 162,000 students, 64 percent of them girls. But the agencies said the remaining opportunities for adolescent girls, including these centres, literacy programmes, skills training and distance learning, fall far short of their needs.
After returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban barred girls from school beyond sixth grade, later extending the ban to universities. UN agencies and many countries have repeatedly urged that the restrictions be lifted, while Taliban authorities have said education decisions follow their interpretation of Islamic law.