11 Percent of Iran's Population is 'Completely Illiterate'

The head of Iran's Literacy Movement Organization states that nearly 9 million people in Iran are 'completely illiterate'. This figure, based on the 2016 census data, constitutes about 11 percent of the country's population. In an interview with Fars News Agency on Friday, August 6, Ali Baqerzadeh added that the number of 8.8 million was derived from the 2016 census by the Statistical Center of Iran, following the self-identification of these individuals as completely illiterate. He also noted that compared to last year's census, '1.5 million fewer people are illiterate in the country.' Baqerzadeh reported a literacy rate of 94.7 percent among the age group of 10 to 49 years, adding that 1,113,000 people in this age group have become literate, indicating a 2.3 percent increase in literacy. However, he mentioned that there are still 2.7 million illiterate individuals in this age group. The head of the Literacy Movement Organization described this figure as 'very good and excellent' compared to global averages and similar periods from 2006 to 2011. He also stated that the literacy rate for the age group of 10 to 19 years is 'over 98 percent' and for the age group of 10 to 29 years is 97.3 percent, which has seen a 1.1 percent increase over the past five years. According to Baqerzadeh, 'at least 1.5 percent of the illiteracy rate has decreased in all provinces,' while past censuses from 1996, 2006, and 2011 indicate that 'the number of illiterates has remained relatively stable.' The Literacy Movement Organization is a governmental body established in 1979 by the order of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, to teach reading and writing to adults and children without access to schools. Baqerzadeh had previously stated in October 2014 that 30 million people in Iran are illiterate or semi-literate. He reminded that according to the last census until 2014, there were 10 million completely illiterate individuals in society, 10 million had primary education, and 10 million had completed secondary education. In 2015, he also announced that the literacy level of 3.5 million Iranians is unclear, and these individuals cannot register for literacy education. While the head of the Literacy Movement Organization defined the minimum literacy skill in Iran as 'reading, writing, arithmetic, and reciting the Quran up to the third grade,' Saeed Peyvandi, an Iranian sociologist residing in Paris, stated in an interview with Radio Farda that in the current era, reading and writing alone are no longer sufficient to consider someone literate. According to Peyvandi, for countries to move towards sustainable development, 'the literacy level of individuals must be such that they can understand the goals of sustainable development, ideas of sustainable development, and the relationship with culture and society in sustainable development, enabling them to become real social actors.' This education specialist expressed the opinion that 'for this reason, reading and writing are no longer enough, and individuals must be able to deal with new technologies, understand environmental issues, and grasp economics and forms of production that contribute to sustainable development.' In this context, 'economic problems' are cited as the reason for half of the cases of student dropouts. The literacy status of 3.5 million Iranians remains unclear, and Sistan and Baluchestan has '100,000 out-of-school children.' The province of Khuzestan is '20 years behind in literacy.'