The Taliban has announced that women in Afghanistan can continue their education at all levels in a press conference on Sunday.

Women must wear hijabs and men and women will be separated in classes. 

The world has been watching closely to see to what extent the Taliban might act differently from their first time in power in the late 1990s, where girls and women were denied an education. 

“There will be no hurdles for girls to continue their education,” Abdul Baqi Haqqani, the higher education minister, said at a news conference in the capital Kabul.

He said that where possible, female students would be taught by women: “Thanks to God we have a high number of women teachers. We will not face any problems in this. All efforts will be made to find and provide women teachers for female students.”

He confirmed: “We will not allow boys and girls to study together,” he said. “We will not allow co-education.”

Haqqani explained that men would teach boys and girls’ classes would be conducted by women, clarifying that if there are not enough women teachers, male teachers will teach girls from behind a curtain.

Haqqani also made it clear that the Taliban did not want to turn the clock back 20 years. “We will start building on what exists today,” he said. 

The higher education minister also said that the Taliban are “willing to work with the international community in the field of education”.

This announcement comes as the Taliban resumes government of Afghanistan last month after US troops pulled out of the country.