Dropout Rates Continue to Rise; 160,000 Primary School Students Out of School

The Deputy Minister of Primary Education has reported an increase in dropout rates at the primary school level, with the latest statistics indicating that 160,000 students have dropped out. According to the newspaper 'Khorasan', while Masoumeh Najafi Pazouki stated that the trend of school dropouts has remained consistent over the past five years, the Statistical Center's data suggests that the dropout rate has not been stable and has actually increased. The statistics show that the number of primary school dropouts has risen over three academic years, from 161,867 in the 2016-2017 academic year to 210,221 in the 2019-2020 academic year. Additionally, the latest report from the Research Center of the Islamic Consultative Assembly regarding dropouts from 2014 to 2022 presents 'strange' statistics. According to the parliamentary research arm, about one million individuals across various educational levels have dropped out for different reasons: 'The total number of individuals who dropped out in the 2015-2016 academic year was 862,000, which increased by 26% to 911,000 in the 2021-2022 academic year.' The data indicates that 70% of dropouts are from the lowest income quintiles (1 to 5). Consequently, the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Razavi Khorasan, Tehran, Khuzestan, and West Azerbaijan have the highest absolute numbers of dropouts. Furthermore, these provinces also had the highest dropout rates in the 2021-2022 academic year. According to statistics from the Islamic Republic in March 2023, one in every 16 students in Iran has lost the opportunity to attend school, and the dropout ratio at the high school level has reached one in every five students. At the same time, the 'Open Data Iran' platform reported that 'the average population of out-of-school children in Iran is equivalent to six percent of the total student population in the country.'