Education in Iran
Senior high school (Dabirestân, دوره دوم دبیرستان), including the last three years, is mandatory.
[5] [6] Universities, institutes of technology, medical schools and community colleges provide the higher education.
[9] Scholars have discovered documents from around 550 BC relating to an emphasis on education in ancient Persia (modern-day Iran).
[10] The documents urged people to gain knowledge to understand God better and to live a life of prosperity.
Although most of the problems focused on religious studies, there were also lessons regarding administration, politics, technical skills, military, sports, and arts.
The first higher education organization, Gundeshapur or Jondishapoor (which still exists), was formed during the Sassanid period, around the third century.
[11] The committee was composed of members of foreign services, ulama, wealthy merchants, physicians, and other prominent people.
The conflicting interests of people involved led to difficulties enacting, however they did succeed in the opening of many new primary and secondary educational schools.
However, pressures due to the Iran-Iraq War and economic disparities forced plans for education back as other issues took priority.
Amir Kabir (the Grand Minister) helped establish the first modern Iranian college in the mid-nineteenth century.
During the early 1970s, efforts were made to improve the educational system by updating the school curriculum, introducing modern textbooks, and training more efficient teachers.
[citation needed] Teaching materials based on Islam were introduced into the primary grades within six months of the revolution.
[18][19][20] In October 2023 government ordered mandatory half hour Islamic prayer everyday for schoolkids.
[24][25][26] In recent decades, schools in Iran have come to be viewed as corporate businesses with steadily rising injustice.
[27][28] Iranian education has witnessed a mass inflation with the rising takeover of private schools in big cities like Isfahan.
At a minimum, students that enter teacher training centers have completed a high school diploma.
Kanoun-e-Zabaan-e-Iran or Iran's Language Institute affiliated with the Center for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults was founded in 1979.
Persian, English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Arabic are taught to over 175,000 students each term.
A few television channels air weekly English and Arabic language sessions, particularly for university candidates preparing for the annual entrance test.
While the universities were closed, the Cultural Revolution Committee investigated professors and teachers and dismissed those who were believers in Marxism, liberalism, and other "imperialistic" ideologies.
Admission to public universities, some are tuition-free, is based solely on performance on the nationwide Konkour exam.
Other major universities are at Shiraz, Tabriz, Isfahan, Mashhad, Ahvaz, Kerman, Kermanshah, Babolsar, Rasht, and Orumiyeh.
[51][52][53] In recent decades Iran has shown an increasing interest in various entrepreneurship fields, in higher educational settings, policy making and business.
The right to a respectable education has been a major demand of the Iranian women's movement starting in the early twentieth century.
The establishment and the expansion of private universities Daneshgah-e-azad-e Islami also contributed to the increasing enrollment for both women and men.
The council, with the support of Islamic feminists, worked to lift all restrictions on women entering any field of study in 1993.
[61] When Khomeini died in 1989, under president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, many but not all restrictions on women's education were lifted, albeit with controversy.
[64] The National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET), also known as SAMPAD (سمپاد), maintains middle and high schools in Iran.
Their tuition is similar to private schools but may be partially or fully waived depending on the student's financial condition.
It has qualitative and knowledge-based curricula consistent with the scientific and research findings, technological, national identity, Islamic and cultural values.
