Kabul University

Kabul University (KU; دانشگاه کابل; د کابل پوهنتون) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul, near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, whose prime minister at the time was his younger brother, Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan. Approximately 22,000 students attend Kabul University. In August 2021, before the Taliban takeover, nearly half were female. The university reopened in February 2022, with classes separated by sex but relatively few changes to the curriculum. Kabul University was established in 1932 during the reign of King Mohammed Nadir Shah and during the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Khan, opening its doors one year later to students from across the country. It benefitted from partnerships with the governments of Turkey, France, Germany and the United States. The first Faculty of Medicine in Kabul was established by a group of Turkish professors of Medicine and Surgery led by Prof. Dr. Kamil Rıfkı Urga in 1932 in the region of Aliabad. The first teaching-university hospital, called the Aliabad Hospital, was also built here on the campus under the guidance and close supervision of Turkish architects and teaching physicians. In 1936 the Faculty of Law & Political Sciences in the same campus was established by Turkish Prof. Dr. Mehmed Ali Dağpınar. The Faculty of Law started to enroll students of law. Therefore, by then, these two faculties (Medicine and School of Law) put the foundation of the present-day Kabul University. The first attending Turkish professors of medicine and surgery who had gone to Afghanistan under an official agreement between the governments of Afghanistan and the Turkish Republic served in Kabul University between 1932 and 1952. The first president (rector) of Kabul University and dean of the Faculty of Medicine was a well-known Turkish surgeon and anatomist, Prof. Dr. Urga, who together with 15 other Turkish physicians taught medicine and surgery for a period of 17 years.