Female Afghan student given chance to study for fully-funded masters degree at Oxford

A female student from war-torn Afghanistan is being offered the opportunity to study for a fully-funded masters degree at Oxford University in a world first.

Oriel College has teamed up with the Yalda Hakim Foundation to offer the one-year course to an Afghan woman who might otherwise be denied access to postgraduate study.

Almost two decades since the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan remains one of the worst places in the world for girls to go to school and university. Attacks against female students and their teachers and professors continue. Eighty-five per cent of the 3.5 million children out of education in Afghanistan are girls.

Amid a spate of fatal shootings and the kidnapping of staff and students, universities in Afghanistan have to be protected by armed guards. Female students are often forced to lie to their families in order to attend because it is generally frowned upon for Afghan women to go on to higher education.

Ms Hakim, a Kabul-born journalist who has worked for BBC World News since 2012, has brokered the scholarship with Oriel to "offer one Afghan woman the opportunity for an educational experience free from the threat of violence, at one of the best universities in the world, where they can expand their knowledge and build networks that will help transform them into a leader for the future".

She told The Telegraph: "I've been back to the hospital where I was born and thought 'this could have been my life'. People look at me working at the BBC and see an Afghan woman who has made it. Yet the reality for a young woman living in Afghanistan today is that they are lucky if they can even get to university.

"We want to give this opportunity to a young Afghan woman who would never dream of walking the halls of Oriel, where so many great thinkers have walked."

Founded in 1326, Oriel's alumni include the explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, the industrialist Cecil Rhodes and the Countdown presenter Rachel Riley. The college is currently deciding whether to remove a statue of Rhodes amid protests over his imperialist past.

Oriel's Provost, Lord Mendoza, said: "We are so delighted to be partnering with the Yalda Hakim Foundation on this scholarship, which will provide a fantastic opportunity for a young Afghan woman to benefit from all of the wonderful opportunities that study at Oxford provides.

"We are looking forward to welcoming the recipient into our lively postgraduate community and to supporting them in their educational endeavours."

The scholarship, for the 2022-23 academic year, will be offered on the basis of academic merit and potential to a student already studying at a university in Afghanistan. Nearly 70 per cent of postgraduate students at Oriel currently attend from one of more than 40 countries outside the UK.