The Taliban has criminalised university-level education for all Afghan women, it has been announced.
The Islamic fundamentalists announced the immediate closure of the classrooms, according to a letter by the higher education minister.
A spokesperson instructed Afghan public and private universities to suspend access to female students immediately, in accordance with a cabinet decision.
The move is until further notice, it was declared.
In October, thousands of girls and women sat university entrance exams across the country.
The decision further restricts women's access to formal education, having already excluded them from secondary schooling.
"You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice," announced the letter signed by Minister for Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem.
It comes weeks after the Taliban banned Afghan women from entering the capital Kabul's public parks and funfairs.
They are already banned from travelling without a male escort.
Women are also forced to wear a hijab or burqa whenever stepping out of their home.
Nineteen people - including nine women - were publicly lashed in Afghanistan last month for adultery, the Taliban admitted.
The barbaric punishments are among the first major signs of the ruling group applying its strict interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) to criminal justice.
"After consideration and a strict sharia investigation, each of them were sentenced to 39 lashes," supreme court spokesperson Mawlawi Enayatullah said, adding that nine women were among those lashed.
The punishments took place in the northeastern province of Takhar on November 11, after Friday prayers on the order of provincial courts, the spokesperson said.
Though it was one of the first major indications of systemised corporal punishment under the hardline Islamist Taliban administration, it was not immediately clear whether such penalties would be meted out nationwide.
The Taliban's supreme spiritual leader this month met with judges and said they should carry out punishments consistent with sharia law, according to a court statement.
