Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which replaced the country's Ministry of Women's Affairs after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. In December 2022, the Taliban banned women from working in non-government organisations (NGOs), and ordered all such organisations to cease employment of female employees. This resulted in some NGOs being unable to continue their work in Afghanistan. Education First rule The Taliban claimed to recognise their Islamic duty to offer education to both boys and girls, yet a decree was passed that banned girls above the age of 8 from receiving education. Maulvi Kalamadin insisted it was only a temporary suspension and that women would return to school and work once facilities and street security were adapted to prevent cross-gender contact. The Taliban wished to have total control of Afghanistan before calling upon an Ulema body to determine the content of a new curriculum to replace the Islamic yet unacceptable Mujahadin version. The female employment ban was felt greatly in the education system. Within Kabul alone, the ruling affected 106,256 girls, 148,223 male students, and 8,000 female university undergraduates. 7,793 female teachers were dismissed, a move that crippled the provision of education and caused 63 schools to close due to a sudden lack of educators. Some women ran clandestine schools within their homes for local children, or for other women under the guise of sewing classes, such as the Golden Needle Sewing School. The learners, parents, and educators were aware of the consequences should the Taliban discover their activities, but for those who felt trapped under the strict Taliban rule, such actions allowed them an opportunity and a sense of self-determination and hope. The Undersecretary of Education Mawlawi Sa'id Shahidkhayl explained in 1998, that education for women was in need of a fatwa regarding its limits. 2021 to present After their takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban at first gender segregated classrooms in universities as long as they "followed Islamic standards". However, in September 2021, they only allowed boys to return to school, preventing most teenage girls from returning to secondary education. The ban did not effect primary schools but girls attendance in those schools appeared to also have fallen significantly. On 20 December 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education informed the country's public and private universities that women were suspended from university education. The ministry stated that female attendance would remain suspended "until a