The Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, during a recent visit to Iran, met with Ali Akbar Velayati, senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader and head of the board of trustees of Islamic Azad University.
On Monday, December 8, Neda Mohammad Nadim called for expanding academic cooperation and establishing new technical, medical, electronics, and artificial intelligence majors at the Kabul branch of Azad University.
Nadim highlighted Afghanistan’s educational needs and expressed support for the expansion of Azad University’s activities in Kabul.
This comes as the Taliban have previously banned the teaching of certain Iranian books and works by female authors in Afghan universities, and have shown sensitivity toward Persian-language humanities texts.
Ali Akbar Velayati stated that Islamic Azad University is ready, within its means, to cooperate with Afghanistan in creating specialized majors and facilitating faculty and student exchanges.
He described Iran’s support for Afghan higher education as “helping Afghanistan’s progress and self-sufficiency”.
