Humanities in Public Schools; A Retreat That Doesn't Solve the Crisis

On Wednesday, December 19, the Public Relations Office of the Iranian Ministry of Education announced that the closure of the humanities field in high schools is not part of the Ministry's overarching policies. The announcement stated that the Ministry of Education has not made any decision regarding the prohibition of enrollment or the restriction of students' studies in the humanities field in regular public schools. Furthermore, according to the Fundamental Transformation Document of Education, the Ministry is obliged to expand and strengthen schools and educational institutions specifically for the humanities. The intention of the Director General of Tehran was to expand and strengthen such schools. According to the Ministry of Education, the expansion of special humanities schools known as 'Farhang' in Tehran does not mean the elimination of the humanities field from other schools in the city, and studies in the humanities field remain intact in all schools. This announcement comes at a time when other news from the Ministry of Education indicates that the discussion about closing the humanities field in high schools is serious. Abolqasem Nireini, the director of a public boys' school in Tehran's district 4, told Fars News Agency that this discussion is being raised, but if the implementation of the Director General of Education's statement is to occur, there must be a plan for replacing humanities with other fields starting next year. Mr. Nireini stated, 'We have already had to eliminate the experimental field because the competition in the university entrance exam is so intense that students prefer to test their chances in the mathematics field. The elimination of humanities will not harm the school, and if this happens, we will have to focus entirely on the mathematics field.' Thus, the Ministry of Education's announcement can be seen as a retreat in implementing a plan that was supposed to be tested in Tehran, a city that has more vocational schools compared to others and where the experimental implementation can be discussed. The Ministry of Education's retreat from this plan can be examined within the framework of the overall inability of Hassan Rouhani's government and specifically the Ministry of Education to adequately inform about the country's executive problems. When the Director General of Education in Tehran announced that starting next year, students would not be able to enroll in the humanities field and must register in Farhang schools, two interpretations emerged in the media and social networks: the first interpretation viewed this action as part of the Iranian government's overall policy, especially Ali Khamenei's, to limit the number of humanities fields in universities and change their content. The second interpretation, using the term 'Farhang schools,' led to the perception that henceforth, the humanities field in high schools would be overseen by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has initiated several schools named Farhang in Tehran. Even subsequent explanations from the Director General of Education in Tehran, which were reflected on the Ministry of Education's website and the Tehran Education website, did not resonate and were not reported in domestic media or even in foreign media, leaving these two interpretations unchallenged. The new announcement from the Ministry of Education reflects the impact of the generalization of these two interpretations on the Ministry's retreat. This action came after Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the government spokesman, stated in a press conference on Tuesday, December 17, that he would ask the Minister of Education to clarify this matter. The ups and downs of the humanities in high schools began when the Ministry of Education organized Farhang schools at the second secondary level in 2006. That same year, Farhang high schools in Tehran offered literature and humanities in districts 4, 5, 7, 10, and 13 for girls and in districts 2, 7, 8, 10, and 16 for boys, conducting exams among third-grade middle school graduates for enrollment in the first year and to fill mid-level capacities from first, second, and third-year high school students. It was also announced that students who achieved provincial and national ranks in scientific and literary competitions, related Olympiads, poetry, essay writing, and similar events would be prioritized under equal conditions. At that time, the condition for participating in the entrance exam for entering the first year of high school was being enrolled in the third grade of middle school in the 2006-2007 academic year and achieving an overall average of 17. The reason for this was that evaluations indicated that most students entering the humanities field at the secondary level had weaker grades compared to those continuing in mathematics, experimental, and vocational fields. The desire to attend humanities fields in Iranian universities significantly increased in the 1990s and early 2000s, a trend that continued until the early 2010s. According to a report published by Beheshti University in Tehran, the number of students changing their major from technical and basic sciences to humanities increased nearly sevenfold between 2003 and 2013. However, this trend was not mirrored in high schools. During the studied period, students with better grades in middle school or the first secondary level still preferred to continue their studies in mathematics and experimental and vocational fields, although gradually in recent years, the inclination of students towards mathematics has also decreased. Regardless of the discussion about the social, educational, and economic reasons for the declining interest in pursuing university studies in the humanities, it can be inferred that one reason for the empty seats in humanities fields at universities is the lower inclination of high school students in the humanities to continue their education at university. Despite the fact that in 2014 nearly 150 educational programs were removed from the list of student selection in universities, the empty seats in humanities fields at universities continue. Mahmoud Bastami, the deputy of the National Educational Assessment Organization, stated this August that there are nearly 13,000 empty seats in mathematics fields and about 100,000 empty seats in humanities fields at universities. According to statistics from the National Educational Assessment Organization, this year, there are 219,000 student admission capacities in the humanities group, while only 160,000 candidates participated in this group. Thus, the chance of acceptance in humanities fields has increased by 260%. This reality indicates that students entering the humanities field in high schools have the least inclination to continue their education at university. An unclear outlook for high school students: According to statistics, it does not seem that reducing the capacity of high schools in humanities fields contradicts the outlook for continuing higher education in humanities fields in the country. However, this is not the whole issue: currently, about 3.21 million students are studying in the second secondary level, and if we accept the 30% criterion regarding the share of humanities from high school students that has been expressed in recent years, we can say that over 960,000 students are studying in the humanities field. Of this number, approximately 100,000 live in Tehran, studying in nearly 1,136 high schools in the city. The Ministry of Education has announced that the capacity allocated for these students is a maximum of 40 high schools. From the explanations of the Director General of Education in Tehran and the new announcement from the Ministry of Education, it appears that one of the goals of the Ministry of Education is to direct these students towards vocational fields. Continuing education in vocational schools in Tehran is mentioned as a new possibility for students who previously studied in the humanities field. Based on this assumption, another outlook for these Tehran students is the 374 vocational schools that exist in Tehran. Meanwhile, Mohsen Hosseini Moghaddam, the Director General of the Technical and Vocational Education Office of the Ministry of Education, recently stated that 'in the 2016-2017 academic year, with the introduction of the new educational system in the second secondary level, under the best conditions, vocational schools in the country will still face about a 30% shortage of space, which can impact the educational quality of students.' If we accept that the Ministry of Education's retreat does not mean erasing the issue, the question now arises that considering that nearly 100,000 Tehran students in the first phase and more than 860,000 students in other regions of the country in later phases are not of an age to enter the job market (even if we ignore the crisis of recession and unemployment in the country), what conditions will they find themselves in following this new transformation? In the new conditions, while reducing the number of students in the humanities field and alleviating the burden on high schools, the financial burden on the Ministry of Education, which is in a financial crisis, may be somewhat alleviated, but it is unclear what impact this will have on the lives of hundreds of thousands of students for whom there is no capacity to absorb them in the country's vocational schools and few Farhang high schools. These ambiguities may temporarily delay the implementation of the plan to reduce the humanities quota, but the more important issue is that the statements of the Director General of Education in Tehran revealed how serious the crisis in secondary education (high schools) in Iran is.