Addis Abeba- The Tigray Islamic Affairs Supreme Council has accused local education officials in Axum of barring 14 Muslim female students from sitting for the national 12th-grade examination due to months-long restrictions on wearing the hijab.
Haji Mohammod Kahsay, General Secretary of the Council, told Addis Standard that the students "were not registered like other students" and claimed that their "registration was done at a hotel." He further alleged that the girls "were not allowed to attend classes unless they removed their hijabs."
According to Haji Mohammod, even after registering, the students "were not permitted to enter the school compound" and "were not issued their admission cards." He added, "Starting from Friday, other students received support ahead of the exam, including computer training," while the Muslim students "were excluded from the preparation."
He said the exclusion had persisted for "more than seven months," during which time the girls "have been prevented from attending school." Calling it a violation of their rights, Haji Mohammod stated the Council was "raising the matter with the appropriate authorities" and engaging the local community.
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In response, the Tigray Education Bureau rejected the allegations. In a statement issued on Monday, Kiros Guesh (PhD), head of the Bureau, said "no Muslim student has been expelled from a testing center for wearing a hijab." He added that "the 24 female students who registered did not show up of their own volition," and noted that they would be permitted to take the second round of exams scheduled to begin on Thursday, 03 July 2025.
However, Haji Mohammod dismissed the Bureau's response, accusing Kiros of "remaining in Mekelle" while "local administrators in Axum deliberately prevented the girls from attending school for months."
"What are we supposed to discuss with the Education Bureau now?" he asked. "The damage has been done... if it was truly unintentional, why wasn't anything said for seven months?"
The Council noted that no similar complaints have been reported from other parts of the region and stated that Muslim girls in other areas of Tigray have taken part in the exams while wearing the hijab.
More than 36,000 students across the Tigray region began sitting for the national 12th-grade exams on Monday.
The current dispute began in late 2024, when Muslim students in Axum town, located in the Central Zone of the Tigray region, challenged school directives banning the hijab. They argued that the ban "violates their constitutional rights to education and religious freedom." The Tigray Islamic Affairs Supreme Council took up the matter, filing a case with the Axum District Court and pointing to the exclusion of female Muslim students from classrooms and examination halls.
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In response, the Axum District Court temporarily suspended the hijab ban on 14 January 2025, warning that the policy could cause "irreversible rights violations." However, students reported that despite the ruling, they continued to face exclusion from school grounds while wearing the hijab, raising concerns over the enforcement of the court's directives.
Tensions increased as thousands of protestors gathered in Mekelle on 21 January 2025. They expressed dissatisfaction with the failure of local schools to comply with both the district court ruling and directives from the Tigray Regional Education Bureau that allowed students to wear religious attire.
Further developments followed when the Axum District Court issued an arrest warrant on 27 January 2025 for school officials accused of defying the suspension order, stating their actions "undermine the court's authority."
Despite this, the court closed the case on 27 February 2025, stating that it had "no authority" to escalate the matter to a higher court and recommending it be resolved through "mediation or administrative proceedings," leaving students without further legal recourse.
