Afghan Refugee Girls Find Education and Hope in Delhi’s Community Schools
In the crowded lanes of southeast Delhi’s Bhogal and Jangpura neighbourhoods, a quiet form of resistance takes place every day. Afghan refugee girls, many of whom fled their homeland after the Taliban’s return to power, sit in classrooms, recite lessons, and pursue studies that remain forbidden for their counterparts in Afghanistan. While the Taliban has imposed one of the world’s most severe bans on girls’ secondary and higher education, community-run schools and learning centres in the Indian capital continue to keep educational doors open for these young women and their families.
The most well-known of these institutions was the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan High School. Established in 1994, initially with support from a women’s organisation, the school evolved over the years into a primary and later a high school serving Afghan refugee children living in India. By the early 2020s it was operating from a rented building on Masjid Lane in Bhogal, offering classes from Class 1 to Class 12. Instruction was primarily in Dari and Pashto, the languages familiar to most Afghan students, with English also taught. Classrooms were mixed, with no gender segregation—an arrangement that stood in stark contrast to the policies enforced in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
At its height in the post-2021 period, the school enrolled around 250 to 280 students. Remarkably, girls outnumbered boys. One count recorded 143 girls and 135 boys. The majority of the roughly 35 teachers were women. The school maintained symbols of the pre-Taliban Afghan republic, including the national flag, and celebrated academic achievers whose photographs lined the corridors. In 2022, 17 graduates secured university places, 13 of them at Delhi University, including seven girls. For many families, the school represented not only academic instruction but a rare space where Afghan culture, language, and mixed-gender learning could continue without fear.
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 changed everything for the school. Funding that had previously come through the Afghan embassy dried up. Rent went unpaid, teachers went without salaries for months, and the institution faced repeated threats of closure. India’s Ministry of External Affairs stepped in at critical moments with financial support that allowed the school to continue for a time and even move to better premises after the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet recognition itself became a problem. Once the Taliban-controlled education ministry no longer acknowledged the school’s certificates, the long-term value of its qualifications came into question. By late 2023, the school had largely ceased regular operations. Students and teachers were left in limbo, with many families struggling to find alternatives.
Despite the setbacks at the formal Afghan high school, education for refugee girls has not stopped. Other community initiatives have stepped into the gap. One of the most active is the Anjam Knowledge House, started by Afghan refugee Ahmad Khan Anjam in a modest basement space in the Jangpura area. The centre teaches English, mathematics, computer skills, and basic familiarity with Indian society and culture. Classes often run in long shifts—from early morning until late evening—to accommodate as many students as possible in limited space. Enrolment has fluctuated with funding and the pandemic, but at various points hundreds of Afghan children and young people have attended, with girls forming a substantial portion of the student body. Many of these students speak primarily Pashto or Dari at home and find the language barrier in regular Indian schools difficult to overcome. Community centres like Anjam’s help bridge that gap.
Smaller, more specialised efforts have also emerged. Afghan women educators have established language and early-learning centres focused on preserving Dari literacy and culture among children born or raised in India. One mother-daughter team began a day-care and language school with the help of a refugee aid grant, teaching nursery rhymes, reading, and basic skills in a courtyard setting. These initiatives may be modest in scale, but they serve a dual purpose: keeping mother-tongue education alive and giving young children a foundation before they attempt to enter the mainstream Indian school system.
The broader context makes these efforts especially significant. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are systematically barred from secondary school and women from university education. International organisations have estimated that more than a million girls have been deprived of secondary schooling since the ban took effect. Primary enrolment has also suffered due to a shortage of male teachers and other restrictions. In this environment, the ability of Afghan refugee girls in Delhi to attend school—mixed classrooms, female teachers, pathways to higher education—represents a meaningful alternative.
Afghan refugees in India, estimated in the tens of thousands with a significant concentration in Delhi, face multiple barriers. Many lack full documentation, making formal school admission complicated. Economic pressures push some older children into work. Language differences create further obstacles. Community schools and learning centres address these challenges by offering flexible schedules, culturally familiar environments, and instruction in languages the students already know. They also provide a sense of continuity and belonging for children who have experienced displacement, loss, and uncertainty.
Students and teachers associated with these centres frequently speak of education as the foundation of any future return or resettlement. Girls express ambitions to become doctors, teachers, engineers, or professionals—goals that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pursue under current conditions in Afghanistan. Parents, many of whom fled precisely because they wanted their daughters to study, view these Delhi classrooms as a form of insurance against the policies they left behind.
Challenges remain substantial. Funding is precarious and often dependent on short-term grants, individual donors, or intermittent government support. Space is limited. Recognition of certificates continues to be an issue for students hoping to progress to Indian universities or seek opportunities abroad. Teachers themselves are frequently refugees facing the same financial and legal uncertainties as their students. Yet the persistence of these initiatives shows a clear community priority: education for girls is not optional.
The story of Afghan refugee girls studying in Delhi is ultimately one of quiet determination. It is not a large-scale, well-resourced programme with guaranteed long-term funding. It is a collection of rented rooms, basements, courtyard classrooms, and dedicated teachers who refuse to let the next generation grow up without learning. In a world where the Taliban has closed school gates to girls across Afghanistan, these small spaces in the Indian capital keep a different possibility alive. For the girls who walk through those doors each day, education is both a right they can still exercise and a form of hope they refuse to surrender.
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