Ashraf Ghairat has been named as the Vice-Chancellor of Kabul University. (file)
Kabul:
Around 70 teaching staff, including assistant professors and professors at Afghanistan’s Kabul University, resigned on Wednesday after the Taliban sacked PhD-holder Vice Chancellor Muhammad Usman Babri and replaced him with BA degree holder Muhammad Ashraf Ghairat.
The appointment of Ashraf Ghairat as the vice-chancellor of the biggest university in Kabul has triggered protests on social media. Critics highlighted a tweet by Ashraf Ghairat last year in which he justified the killing of journalists.
People are angry over the appointment of a young graduate degree holder to replace an intellectual and experienced PhD holder as the best and head of Afghanistan’s first university, The Khama Press news agency reported.
People, including some members of the Taliban, have criticized the move, saying there are more deserving people, Khama Press news agency reported.
Ashraf Ghairat is said to have served in the Ministry of Education in the previous government and headed the IEA’s universities evaluation body in the southwestern part of Afghanistan, The Khama Press news agency reported.
Earlier, the Taliban on Monday officially renamed a government university after Burhanuddin Rabbani—former Afghan president and founder of Afghanistan’s second largest political party—the Kabul Education University.
The university was named after Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was killed in a suicide attack at his home in 2009.
An official directive issued by the Ministry of Higher Education states that the universities are intellectual property of Afghanistan and should not be named after political or ethnic leaders, The Khama Press news agency reported.
The directive states that linguistic, regional and ethnic discrimination has prevailed in Afghanistan over the past two decades and national places have been named after them.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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