Why is Education in Iran So Poor?

How much of the wealth produced in Iran is spent annually on educating and training its future generations? How does Iran's situation in this area compare to that of developed countries, and has there been any significant improvement since earlier years? These questions are crucial as discussions about early school dropout rates, deficiencies in the education system ranging from a lack of educational space and teachers to safe classrooms and basic educational facilities have been regularly reproduced since past decades, and it often seems there is no prospect for resolving these fundamental issues. The discussion here is not about modernizing the educational system, aligning Iranian education with scientific advancements and new technologies, building smart schools, or employing new participatory educational methods to train effective, inquisitive young generations capable of understanding and adapting to a changing world, or having teachers who are satisfied with their living and professional conditions. The focus is on the existence of safe classrooms with a blackboard, a few desks and chairs, and a teacher, the presence of schools in underdeveloped and remote areas, preventing early school dropouts among girls and boys, and the basic facilities that allow all adolescents in this country to at least remain in the educational system until the end of compulsory education. Iran's position in human development is not favorable in international comparative studies, ranking between 85th and 90th in the world for years. The main reason for this unfavorable situation is long-standing educational and social backwardness in human resource development and the existence of inequality between women and men. While Iran's higher education has quantitatively grown significantly and matches key indicators in developed countries, alongside this positive phenomenon, we witness numerous negative phenomena such as a high number of illiterates (about 10 million) and semi-literate individuals (about 15 million), as well as significant regional and gender inequalities in education and the labor market. This disordered educational situation pertains to a country with a 150-year history of modern education. A country where, 106 years after the approval of the law on public education and the compulsory nature of basic education, and despite substantial oil revenues, millions of people still cannot access public education until the age of 15, and many leave school without acquiring specific skills before turning 18. One of the main problems in human resource development in Iran is the existence of a large population of illiterate and semi-literate individuals, which continues to grow due to millions of Iranian adolescents dropping out of the educational system. A statistical calculation based on the 2016 census estimates that about 2.5 million individuals are deprived of compulsory public education by the age of 15, and about 2 million others never manage to reach the end of secondary education. The sum of these two figures, which encompasses more than a quarter of the young generation, constitutes a large social group that is regularly added to the illiterate and semi-literate population of Iran, exacerbating the human resource poverty in a context where continuous and profound scientific and technical transformations in educational systems in developed countries have necessitated serious rethinking to improve the quality of schools. Simultaneously, the illiterate and semi-literate groups live on the margins of Iranian society and the economy and are exposed to various social harms. Field studies on early school dropouts indicate that family poverty and the lack of appropriate educational facilities, especially in rural and underdeveloped areas and poor urban neighborhoods, are significant factors. Inadequate educational methods, alongside the persistence of cultural traditions (especially concerning girls), are two other factors that contribute to the phenomenon of school dropout. Dropping out of the educational cycle is more prevalent in remote and marginal areas. Educationally advanced provinces in Iran, such as Tehran, Isfahan, Yazd, Semnan, and Gilan, have very high educational coverage, while border provinces in the south, east, and west of Iran are considered educationally deprived areas where the phenomenon of school dropout is more widespread, especially in the years following primary education. Adolescents in areas where Persian is not the common language have less chance of continuing their education than others. For example, in Sistan and Baluchestan, the average years that young girls remain in the educational system is about half that of areas like Tehran, Yazd, Semnan, and Isfahan. This blacklist also includes migrant students, especially Afghan children, who are sometimes excluded from the educational system due to discrimination, administrative issues, and lack of residency permits. Statistical data simultaneously indicate that there has been no significant improvement in educational coverage over the past two decades. Meanwhile, without effective government intervention to support children from impoverished families or to provide appropriate educational conditions and ancillary facilities (such as transportation for rural or remote areas), there is no clear prospect for improving the educational coverage situation in Iran. The fundamental problem of education in Iran is the low quality of education. This quality poverty is evident due to the shortages and problems related to school facilities and also stems from traditional educational methods and the abilities and skills of teachers to employ new methods and transform education and learning. The quantitative poverty of education in Iran cannot be separated from the quality-related poverty of education. In earlier decades, the rapid increase in the student population in Iran caused the educational system to permanently grapple with significant problems such as a lack of educational space or human resources. For instance, the number of students in Iran rose from about 7 million in 1978 to over 19 million by the end of the 1990s. During this time, the discussion of educational quality was secondary to the necessity of providing basic facilities to send the new student population to classrooms. It was during this period that Iranian schools became two or three shifts due to a lack of educational space, and this phenomenon is still observed in some regions of Iran. Since the end of the 1990s, due to the decline in Iran's population growth rate, we have witnessed a steady decrease in the student population, with the number of students in Iran remaining around 13 million in recent years. All evidence indicates that the Iranian educational system has not effectively utilized this historical opportunity over the past 15 years to gradually overcome its quantitative and qualitative shortcomings, and the extent of educational poverty has not significantly decreased. The insufficient share of education in gross domestic product and the stagnation of Iran's educational system in recent years are primarily related to the government's lack of attention to education and insufficient investment in this important area. According to estimates and data published by official institutions, the share of educational expenditures in Iran's total gross domestic product is about 3%, which has slightly decreased in recent years. The per-student expenditure in the public sector does not exceed approximately 600 euros. A simple international comparison shows that the share of educational expenditures in Iran's gross national product is less than half that of significant parts of developed countries. The per-student expenditure, considering the purchasing power of Iranian society, is about one-fifth of the average in developed countries. These two indicators clearly illustrate the reasons for the current educational problems in Iran and its qualitative and quantitative poverty. In fact, education has been the forgotten domain of Iranian society over the past three decades, and instead of gradually increasing the education budget and effectively managing financial and human resources, the government has been more involved in the daily problems of the extensive Ministry of Education's organization. In the view of many education officials, education is seen as an economic burden on the government, which is why they sometimes, desperate to solve problems, talk about privatizing education or handing over tasks to the private sector. Everyone knows that this participation already exists, and the presence of the private sector in education (non-profit and non-governmental schools) has accelerated since the early 1990s. However, this participation has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years and does not exceed 10% of the student population. This means that a very large proportion of Iranian families cannot afford the heavy costs of private schools, whose tuition exceeds the income of an average middle-class employee. The participation of the private sector in education in Iran, like in many other countries, is a topic of extensive discussions. Global experience in this area, especially for developing countries, shows that due to the poverty of large sections of society, the role of the government in providing compulsory education is of great importance, and educational costs are a kind of beneficial investment for the country's future. The fundamental problem with the presence of the private sector in education is the expansion of educational injustice and the formation of two different types of education for the underprivileged (public) and affluent groups (private). Each country, depending on its specific situation, should be able to reach a political consensus on the type of potential participation of the private sector or the sharing of educational costs from families in public schools, especially in the post-compulsory education period and in higher education. It should not be forgotten that education is part of the essential public services that the government is obliged to provide for the new generation according to the constitution. The not-so-bright outlook of educational quality poverty in Iran is not limited to ineffective methods, inappropriate teacher training, poor management, and lack of equipment. The general philosophy of education in Iran and its definition based on a rigid and narrow understanding of a religious interpretation has blocked the path to creativity and intellectual, scientific, and cultural vitality. In a system where fixed and eternal religious truths and dogmas play a central role in the educational discourse, and the main goal of the curriculum is to impose a specific value system and religious culture on the young generation, there is little room for educational dynamism and learning based on inquiry and assessment. Educational methods in such a system are necessarily authoritarian and dictatorial, and students, teachers, and families must obediently follow policies dictated from above to schools. The main concern of Iranian educational officials in recent decades has been more about religiously orienting curricula and ideologically controlling schools than overcoming educational poverty in terms of quantity and quality. The important discussions surrounding educational policies over the past three decades have focused more on ideological and religious issues than on the main knots of the educational system, the continuation of early dropout rates and their pathological consequences, such as the existence of child labor and child marriage, the poverty of educational quality, and the adequate training of teachers. For many, establishing prayer rooms and Quranic schools, Islamicizing books and curricula, religious propaganda trips (Raheeyan Noor), and the hijab for young girls have been and continue to be more important than the fundamental problems of education. Today, the record of these policies and orientations is evident to all. An ideological stubbornness and rigid political and religious beliefs over the years have acted like a thick curtain that prevents seeing the main challenges of education in Iran and the extensive poverty that the educational system is trapped in. For this reason, we are facing a kind of structural deadlock in the field of education in Iran, which means that there is no clear prospect for fundamental changes in Iranian education.