Ghulam Omar Qargha via brookings.edu: Historically, there has been a noticeable divide in Afghanistan between rural and urban communities and how they view schooling and education. Generally, students of the madrasa system (who tend to be from rural communities) have sounded the alarm that schools are a mechanism to undermine religious and cultural identities, while urban elites have championed schooling as a force of modernization and economic prosperity. The Taliban’s closing of girls’ secondary schools is the latest example of how education—and girls’ schooling, in particular—has become a proxy for larger socio-cultural, political, religious, and economic conflicts related to balancing traditional and modernist aspirations.  Click here to read more (external link).