Afghan universities were declared off limits to women because female students were not following instructions including a proper dress code, the Taliban's minister for higher education said on Thursday.

"Those female students who were coming to universities from home were also not following instructions on hijab.... They were dressing like they were going to a wedding," Neda Mohammad Nadeem said in an interview on state television.

On Tuesday, Nadeem triggered international outrage by ordering a sweeping ban on women's education in universities, in the latest crackdown on women's rights in Afghanistan.

The ban came less than three months after thousands of women students were allowed to sit university entrance exams, many aspiring for teaching and medicine as future careers.

Secondary schools for girls have been closed across most of the country for over a year – also temporarily, according to the Taliban, although they have offered a host of reasons for why they have not opened. (AFP)