KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The Taliban have deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, a United Nations agency said Thursday. Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education.

The Taliban, who took power in 2021, barred education for girls above sixth grade because they said it did not comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. They didn’t stop it for boys and show no sign of taking steps to reopen classrooms and campuses for girls and women.

UNESCO said at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since the takeover, an increase of 300,000 since its previous count in April 2023, with more girls reaching the age limit of 12 every year.

“If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls,” UNESCO said.

The Taliban did not respond to requests for comment.

Access to primary education has also fallen since the Taliban took power in August 2021, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, according to UNESCO data.

The UN agency warned that authorities have “almost wiped out” two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan. “The future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy,” it added.

It said Afghanistan had 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022, compared with 6.8 million in 2019. The enrollment drop was the result of the Taliban decision to bar female teachers from teaching boys, UNESCO said, but could also be explained by a lack of parental incentive to send their children to school in an increasingly tough economic environment.

“UNESCO is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labor and early marriage,” it said.

The Taliban celebrated three years of rule Wednesday at Bagram Air Base. There was no mention of the country’s hardships, nor promises to help the struggling population.

Decades of conflict and instability have left millions of Afghans on the brink of hunger and starvation and unemployment is high.