Five years after the Taliban returned to power, the dismissal, downsizing, reassignment and resignation of university professors have become widespread across Afghanistan’s public universities. From Kabul to Herat, Balkh, Bamyan, Khost, Paktia, Badakhshan, Kunar and Nangarhar, numerous cases of academic staff being removed or their positions being cut have been documented.
For this report, RM Media reviewed figures and documented cases published by Afghan media outlets and monitoring organisations, covering changes to academic staff from August 2021 through 2026. The reasons behind these changes, as well as other restrictions imposed on universities, will be examined in subsequent reports.
Kabul
Kabul University was among the first higher-education institutions to undergo major changes to its academic staff after the Taliban returned to power. In September 2021, following the removal of university president Mohammad Osman Baburi and the appointment of Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat, around 70 members of the teaching staff resigned.
The departure of faculty members continued in the months that followed. In 2023, BBC Persian reported that more than 400 of Kabul University’s approximately 780 professors had left Afghanistan during the first 20 months of Taliban rule.
In January 2025, the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education removed 26 professors from academic posts at the faculties of Sharia, Kabul Medical University, Kabul Education University and Kabul Polytechnic University, transferring them to administrative positions. They were replaced by new appointees, most of whom were reportedly affiliated with the Taliban and graduates of religious schools in Pakistan.
In May 2025, another wave of dismissals was reported at Kabul University. Afghanistan International, citing university sources, reported that a list of 264 academic and administrative staff had been targeted for dismissal, including 170 professors. Around 70 of those professors were women. The report noted that the Taliban had not released official figures and that the list could not be independently verified.
In December 2024, Afghanistan International also reported that the Taliban had hired at least three Pakistani professors at Kabul University. Citing university sources, the outlet said the appointments came as a significant number of experienced academics and professors with senior academic ranks had either been dismissed or left the country.
The changes at Kabul University have therefore taken several forms, including direct dismissals, resignations, migration, transfers from academic to administrative positions and the elimination of academic posts.
Herat
In August 2022, Abdullah Fayez, a former president of Herat University, told Zan Times that 108 professors had been dismissed from the university during the first year of Taliban rule. He said the university had nearly 500 academic staff members before the Taliban takeover.
Thirty of those dismissed were women. Fayez said women had accounted for 113 of the university’s academic staff before the Taliban returned to power.
On August 20, 2026, 11 professors from Herat University’s Faculty of Medicine resigned. The resignations followed the detention of eight professors by the Taliban’s morality police. Local sources said the professors were detained over having short or no beards and were held for a period in a shipping container.
The resignations left half of the faculty’s 22-member teaching staff vacant, according to sources. They also said Taliban officials at the university refused to accept the resignations and threatened the professors with imprisonment.
Balkh
In April 2022, 50 professors and eight administrative and financial staff members at Balkh University were dismissed. Reports at the time also raised allegations about the ethnic composition of those dismissed and the possible replacement of some of them with clerics and individuals close to the Taliban.
Balkh University rejected some of these allegations, while several professors told the media that they or their colleagues were among those dismissed.
Bamyan
In May 2025, 53 positions at Bamyan University were cut, including 34 academic posts. Reports said many of those affected were university faculty members, including professors with master’s and doctoral degrees.
Etilaatroz reported that more than 50 people had been affected and said most of those dismissed were members of the Hazara community. The newspaper also reported that the Taliban had, the previous year, dismissed or forced out at least 49 Hazara professors at Bamyan University.
Khost
At Sheikh Zayed University in Khost, around 120 academic and administrative staff members were removed from their positions in May 2025 under a downsizing process. Scholars at Risk documented the case and reported that many of those affected had links to Afghanistan’s former government or ideological disagreements with the Taliban.
Earlier, in December 2024, Hesamuddin Rahimzai, a professor at the university’s Faculty of Sharia and Law, was beaten and detained after objecting to the faculty evaluation process.
Paktia
In May 2025, 90 professors and other employees at Paktia University were affected by a downsizing process. According to published reports, the group included 35 professors, 18 doctors at the university’s teaching hospital and a number of contracted employees.
Sources said some of the affected professors held the academic rank of associate professor or had doctoral degrees. A list of additional professors was reportedly being prepared for further downsizing.
Badakhshan
In March 2025, the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education dismissed six professors from the Faculty of Sharia at Badakhshan University. Hashte-Subh Daily reported that the professors held senior academic ranks and had more than a decade of teaching experience.
In May 2025, the positions of 36 members of staff at Badakhshan University were also cut. Reports said most of those on the list were professors and that a significant proportion were women.
Kunar
In December 2024, 12 professors at Sayyed Jamaluddin Afghan University in Kunar were dismissed. Eight taught at the Faculty of Sharia, two at the Faculty of Agriculture and two at the Faculty of Education.
Parwan and Kapisa
In May 2025, Hashte-Subh Daily reported the dismissal of 16 academic staff members at Parwan University and Al-Biruni University. At the same time, 15 people, including clerics, were appointed as professors at the two institutions.
According to the report, the previous faculty members were removed from academic positions and were to be transferred to administrative posts.
Nangarhar
Cases involving the elimination and downsizing of university positions have also been reported at Nangarhar University.
In 2025, Etilaatroz reported that 9 positions at the Faculty of Education were eliminated, including six teaching posts and four administrative positions. Two women, one professor and one administrative employee, were among those affected.
Other universities
The documented cases extend beyond Kabul, Herat, Balkh, Bamyan, Khost, Paktia, Badakhshan, Kunar, Parwan, Kapisa and Nangarhar.
In an investigative report published in February 2026, Hashte-Subh reviewed a list containing the names of at least 76 professors from 17 public universities who had been dismissed or removed from their positions in the years following the Taliban takeover. The list covered universities in Kabul, Kunar, Balkh, Badakhshan, Takhar, Khost, Faryab, Jawzjan, Baghlan, Al-Biruni, Herat, Ghor, Bamyan and Nangarhar.
Notes on the figures
There is no single comprehensive figure for the number of professors who have been dismissed, downsized, reassigned, resigned or left the country over the past five years. The available figures cover different forms of staff reduction and come from a range of media reports and monitoring organisations.
The figures therefore cannot be combined into a single total. Instead, this report brings together documented and attributable cases, organised by university and province, to show the scale and geographic spread of changes to academic staff since August 2021.
