34°48′04″N 67°49′58″E / 34.801115°N 67.832813°E / 34.801115; 67.832813
Bamyan University (Persian: دانشگاه بامیان, Pashto: دبامیان پوهنتون, established approximately 1994[2] or 1997[3]) is a public university in Bamyan, central Afghanistan.
Bamyan University was initiated around 1994 (another source indicates 1997) with the support of the Hazara political party Hezb-i-Wahdat. Before the Taliban takeover of the area, there were 400-500 male and female students at Bamyan University, under 40 professors.[2] In the mid-1990s, its facilities were simple, consisting of a few mud huts.[4]
The university was closed by the Taliban after their capture of the city of Bamyan in September 1998. Two buildings were stripped for scrap, while the third was used as a Taliban barracks and communications center. This third building was destroyed by U.S. airstrikes at the start of the war in Afghanistan in 2001.[2]
Under the American and New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Teams, the university was refurbished and reopened in 2004 with admission of 97 male and female students; the academic staff was 40 with a majority holding a master's degree.[5] Construction was, at one point, delayed due to the need to clear landmines, leading to student protests.[6] A number of Afghans who had taken refuge in Iran returned to Bamyan; of that group several female intellectuals became lecturers at the university.[7]
