Herat University is a public university located in Herat, the capital of Herat Province, in western Afghanistan. It was inaugurated in 1988, beginning with a faculty of Literature and Humanities. The first President was Abubakr Rashed. The university has 14 faculties and 45 departments. The most popular field of study is Education/Pedagogy and around one-third of the university's 10,500 students are women.