The Education City in Doha, Qatar functions as a standalone city, housing numerous branches of prestigious universities and schools from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, which serve tens of thousands of students. The facilities, including cycling tracks, libraries, eating places, and dormitories, all boast a modern and impressive design.
The Sholla building, a tall, white structure, may seem modest in comparison to the edifices of American universities like Georgetown and Ivy League colleges or Qatar's own Hamad Bin Khalifa University. However, Sholla is home to the Afghanistan American University, which relocated to the Qatari capital. It carries the dreams and ambitions of Afghan female students, who, due to the Taliban's return to power in Kabul since August 2021, are not only deprived of education, but also of an active social life.
Inside the educational institution, a walk down a corridor leading to the classrooms reveals walls adorned with pre-Taliban offense photos. The photographs depict young men and women lounging on the campus green in Kabul, engaging in discussions, their faces lit up with smiles.
Qatari and US Funding
On a fall morning in 2023, about ten students attended a mathematics lesson on solving quadratic equations, taught in English. Occasionally, voices drifted from the computer placed on the teacher's desk. They were the students tuning in remotely from Afghanistan. An Afghan girl was called to the board; her class fellows assisted her in finding the solution. As soon as the equation was solved, the teacher encouraged everyone to applaud.
Classes resumed in Doha over a year ago, in August 2022. The establishment, funded by Qatar and the US government, hosts a hundred and eighty-four on-site students, of which a hundred and eighteen are women. In addition to this, seven hundred students have enrolled in online courses from Afghanistan. Moreover, three hundred and fifty high school girls, deprived of their local educational facilities, have enrolled in humanities and sciences preparatory classes on a remote basis. Teachers from twenty-five different nationalities, primarily American and Afghan, are present on-site or remotely.
The relocation of the Afghanistan American University to Qatar was made possible largely due to the fact that over the past ten years, the United States ally has consistently made efforts to establish itself as a significant mediator in Afghan affairs. It was in this context that the agreement concerning the American withdrawal from Afghanistan was finalized in February 2020 in this wealthy small emirate of the Gulf. Following the fall of Kabul, Doha became an essential transit point for all those seeking to influence the region.
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