Page 59 - EducationWorld Oct 2021

also likely exclude female students from higher education
and will forcibly close many educational institutions.”
Crews adds that institutions focusing on technical edu-
cation may fare better, but it will be difficult to staff them
given “uncertainty about how the Taliban will treat them”.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who previously served in
the British Army in Afghanistan and is now a visiting fel-
low at Magdalene College, Cambridge, says the big ques-
tion is “whether the leopard has changed its spots. The last
time they were in power, the Taliban had no interest in
academia. If one takes that view, then the prospects are
disastrous. I hope I’m wrong.”
De Bretton-Gordon says it’s crucial to rescue Afghan
scholars, something his own college is involved in doing.
“There is so much knowledge in Afghanistan on a whole
host of issues. The potential to lose that — and the poten- Afghan varsity students: hard-won gains loss prospect
tial for academic persecution if they stay — means that we
should welcome them as refugees in this country,” he adds. secure the lives and careers of Afghanistan’s scholars, stu-
A group of Afghan scholars with Chevening scholarships dents, and civil society actors” through evacuation flights,
to study in the UK recently arrived in the country after the legal pathways for visas and resettlement, and the establish-
UK government made a U-turn on an earlier foreign office ment of dedicated national fellowships.
decision to “pause” their scholarships.
Scholars at Risk, which is based at New York University,
has issued urgent appeals to the White House, European (Excerpted and adapted from The Economist and Times
governments and the European Union. It calls on states “to Higher Education)

OCTOBER 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 59