When the Taliban seized power, it soon launched a purge of Afghanistan's universities in a bid to promote its radical Islamic values.
Now, facing a severe shortage of qualified university teachers, the hard-line Islamist group is trying to convince exiled educators to return to their homeland.
The Taliban's education minister, Neda Mohammad Nadim, announced this week that the group had "sent different delegations to various countries so those who are good instructors and are living abroad return."
But professors who left when the Taliban seized power over two years ago say there is little to come back to.
"Being a professor at a university is not only about income and career, what is important is independence, critical thinking, and freedom of expression," Sami Rasakh, an educator who left Afghanistan for an undisclosed country, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.
"We do not have these rights under such a government [the Taliban]," Rasakh said, concluding that "professors who went to more advanced countries will not return."
The Taliban's education minister, Nada Mohammad Nadim (file photo)
Despite the Taliban's recruitment effort, educators remain subject to significant restrictions on what they can teach and to whom. The denial of higher education to girls and women, which forced many women teachers out of their profession or led them to leave the country, is a major sticking point.
Obaidullah Wardak, a former mathematics professor at Kabul University, says the Taliban must first provide girls and women the right to attend universities before the group can expect to convince professors to return. "Professors should not be expected to teach like machines," Wardak told Radio Azadi, saying the right to education for all must be protected.
"The professors want to see if there are [improvements] in place," said Wardak, who resigned from his position and moved abroad. "As a first step, we demand that the gates of the universities be opened again for girls."
SEE ALSO: Islam Does Not Ban Girls' Education. So Why Does The Taliban?The Taliban has fired scores of university professors, particularly women, replacing them with Taliban clerics. Dozens of other professors have resigned from their positions to protest the group's severe restrictions on education.
Another hitch in the re-recruitment drive is the Taliban's continuing purge of universities as it tries to impose its hard-line values on all aspects of Afghan life.
The Taliban has vowed to root out all forms of the modern, secular education that thrived in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban's first regime. Since regaining power, the militants have converted scores of secular schools, public universities, and vocational training centers into Islamic seminaries, leading to a surge in the number of madrasahs in the country.
Multiple professors told Radio Azadi that the very same Education Ministry that wants them to return to the classroom had ordered the institutions where they taught to replace them with unqualified members of the Taliban government.
"On the one hand, it is ordered that I be removed, on the other, I will be invited [to return]?" Noorullah Shad, a former professor of Pashto literature at Kabul's Sheikh Zahid University, told Radio Azadi from abroad.
"If a professor returns, what guarantees are there that no one will be imprisoned again, my human rights will be protected, my dignity will be protected? Shad asked.
Who Believes Taliban's Promises?
Upon seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban gave assurances that it would not return to the infamously brutal rule it employed while first in power from 1996 to 2001.
In an effort to reverse the damage from the loss of government bureaucrats, military personnel, doctors, and other professionals, the Taliban called on Afghans to return to their former positions to help rebuild the country.
As a carrot, the Taliban pledged to respect girls' and women's right to education and offered amnesty for soldiers and police who worked for the previous Afghan government.
But rights groups have recorded scores of cases in which former military and police personnel were targeted and killed, while the global community has expressed outrage at the Taliban's refusal to live up to its promises when it comes to the rights of girls and women.
SEE ALSO: 'Their Freedoms Have Been Taken Away': Afghanistan Sees Surge In Female Suicides Under Taliban RuleSome university professors, meanwhile, have been imprisoned for criticizing the Taliban's restrictions on girls and women attending university. In December, the Taliban doubled down by barring girls and women from campuses entirely.
The end result, according to the United Nations mission to Afghanistan, is that the Taliban has established "the most repressive country in the world regarding women's rights."
The Taliban's education minister, Nadim, nevertheless has claimed that some professors have returned to resume teaching in Afghanistan.
Rasakh, the exiled university professor, conceded in his interview with Radio Azadi that "professors who are down on their luck in [neighboring] Iran and Pakistan would maybe accept the Taliban's pitch out of necessity."
Multiple professors who have returned and spoke to Radio Azadi supported Rasakh's argument, saying they had to come back after experiencing financial problems and difficulties in obtaining legal documents to stay abroad.