Expansion of the Education Crisis in Iran; 'Village Kindergartens' Closed Due to Budget Cuts and Elimination of Hot Meals

The head of the Child Education and Training Organization has announced the closure of a 'major' portion of welfare kindergartens, stating that half of the welfare kindergartens were 'village kindergartens' that have been shut down due to budget cuts and the elimination of their hot meal during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mojtaba Hematifar reported that there are 7 million and 300 thousand children, with 'only 900 thousand' of them covered by the Child Education and Training Organization. The National Child Education and Training Organization is a government agency under the Ministry of Education responsible for organizing matters related to kindergartens, preschools, and other centers for the care and education of children under 6 years old. The head of the organization is considered a deputy minister of education. This official emphasized that according to the organization's charter, all children aged 4 to 6 must be covered by the Child Education and Training Organization by the year 1407 (2028). This goal comes at a time when, according to Hematifar, the Welfare Organization has eliminated budget lines to support kindergartens in deprived and rural areas since 2019. The issue of children being deprived of education is not limited to this age group, as on the first day of the school year, the Teachers' Association of Fars issued a message titled 'September and Those Left Behind' stating that we begin the school year while 'thousands of children have dropped out of education for various reasons.' This association considers working children as 'small victims of poverty' who are among those who have dropped out of education. The message emphasized that while according to Article 30 of the Islamic Republic's Constitution, 'the government is obliged to provide free education for all citizens until the end of secondary education,' we are witnessing children being deprived of education. However, this trend has economic roots, and the distance of children from education has reached a level that even official institutions of the Islamic Republic have confirmed. In this regard, the latest report from the Research Center of the Parliament shows that the number of students dropping out of education has increased by 26% over the past 7 years, and in the 2021-2022 school year alone, more than 911 thousand children were left out of the education cycle, while the rate of children being absorbed into the education system has always been negligible. Data from the Statistical Center of Iran also indicates that the number of students dropping out of primary education has been increasing over three academic periods, with the number of dropouts in the 2017-2018 school year being nearly 162 thousand, which increased to over 210 thousand in the 2019-2020 school year. Statistics also show that 70% of 'dropouts' are from the lower income deciles one to five.