Student Protests Against Final Exam Questions in Iran

DANA news agency has reported the expansion of protests by third-year high school students regarding the "difficulty" of final exams across "Iranian cities." According to the report on Tuesday (June 10), third-year high school students in Yazd, South Khorasan, Kerman, Gorgan, Shahroud, and Isfahan demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Education and burned books to express their discontent with what they describe as "out of the book and conceptual nature of the final exams." In recent days, similar protests have taken place in Ilam, Shiraz, and Tehran due to the "much harder" nature of this year's final exam questions compared to previous years, the "conceptual nature" of many questions, and their being "outside the framework of the book." On some social media platforms, these students have voiced their protests using hashtags like "protest against final exams." ILNA news agency also reported that the "shock" of third-year high school students regarding the difficulty of exam questions began in Tehran and has "serially" spread to other cities in Iran. ILNA stated that the Ministry of Education's stance against these protests and its denial of their difficulty has contributed to the continuation of the protests. Abdolrasool Emadi, head of the Assessment Center of the Ministry of Education, stated shortly after the protests that "in our view, the exams are not difficult, and the questions are from the content of the book that students studied throughout the year." He attributed the widespread nature of these protests to the impact of academic records on university entrance exams in recent years and the ability to coordinate for protest actions in cyberspace. Emadi also told Mehr news agency that "the issues students have regarding the difficulty of the exams are not valid, and no retest will be held." The education directors of Isfahan and Razavi Khorasan provinces have also deemed the students' protests regarding the final exams as "unfounded" and attributed the widespread protests to the functions of cyberspace. While education officials consider the protests of third-year high school students to be unfounded, an unnamed math teacher stated in an interview with ILNA that "the questions given were not at the level of the students." According to him, after grading the exams, he observed that "the scores are low, and compared to last year, the average has dropped by two or three points." The scores of the final exams for third-year high school students are significant because the average of this academic year influences the results of university entrance exams.