$Unique_ID{COW01788} $Pretitle{268} $Title{Iran Chapter 2F. Education} $Subtitle{} $Author{Eric Hooglund} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{revolution education schools government school students public iran percent country} $Date{1987} $Log{} Country: Iran Book: Iran, A Country Study Author: Eric Hooglund Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1987 Chapter 2F. Education Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, it was traditional in Iran for education to be associated with religious institutions. The clergy, both Shia and non-Shia, assumed responsibility for instructing youth in basic literacy and the fundamentals of religion. Knowledge of reading and writing was not considered necessary for all the population, and thus education generally was restricted to the sons of the economic and political elite. Typically, this involved a few years of study in a local school, or maktab. Those who desired to acquire more advanced knowledge could continue in a religious college, or madraseh, where all fields of religious science were taught. A perceived need to provide instruction in subjects that were not part of the traditional religious curriculum, such as accounting, European languages, military science, and technology, led to the establishment of the first government school in 1851. For many years this remained the only institution of higher learning in the country. By the early twentieth century there were several schools teaching foreign languages and sciences, including a few for girls. These schools were run by foreign missionaries, private Iranians, and the government. Their function was to educate the children of the elite. During the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1907), a number of reform-minded individuals proposed the establishment of a nationwide, public, primary school system. Progress in opening new schools was steady but slow, and by the end of the Qajar dynasty (1925) there were approximately 3,300 government schools with a total enrollment of about 110,000 students. During the Pahlavi era (1925-79), the government implemented a number of policies aimed at modernizing the country and expanded the education system. The Ministry of Education was given responsibility for regulating all public and private schools and drafted a uniform curriculum for primary and for secondary education. The entire public system was secular and for many years remained based upon the French model. Its objective was to train Iranians for modern occupations in administration, management, science, and teaching. This education system was the single most important factor in the creation of the secularized middle class. The goal of creating a nationwide education system was never achieved during the Pahlavi era. In 1940 only 10 percent of all elementary-age children were enrolled in school, and less than 1 percent of youths between the ages of 12 and 20 were in secondary school. These statistics did not increase significantly until the early 1960s, when the government initiated programs to improve and expand the public school system. By 1978 approximately 75 percent of all elementary-age children were enrolled in primary schools, while somewhat less than 50 percent of all teenagers were attending secondary schools. Modern college and university education also was developed under the Pahlavis; by the 1920s, the country had several institutes of higher education. In 1934 the institutes associated with government ministries were combined to form the University of Tehran, which was coeducational from its inception. Following World War II, universities were founded in other major cities, such as Tabriz, Esfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Ahvaz. During the 1970s, these universities were expanded, and colleges and vocational institutes were set up in several cities. One of the first measures adopted by the government after the Revolution in 1979 was the desecularization of the public school system. This was a three-pronged program that involved purging courses and textbooks believed to slander Islam and substituting courses on religion; purging teachers to ensure that only those who understood the true meaning of Islam (i.e., were not secular) remained in the schools; and regulating the behavior and dress of students. Although the government reintroduced the study of religion into the public school curriculum from primary grades through college, it did not act to alter the basic organization of the education system. Thus, as late as the school year 1986-1987, schools had not changed significantly from the pattern prior to the Revolution. Students studied in primary schools for five years, beginning the first grade at about age seven. Then they spent three years, designated the guidance cycle, in a middle school. In this cycle, the future training of students was determined by their aptitude as demonstrated on examinations. Students were then directed into one of three kinds of four-year high schools: the academic cycle, preparing for college; the science and mathematics cycle, preparing for university programs in engineering and medicine; and the vocational technical cycle. The Ministry of Education announced that nearly 11.5 million students were registered for elementary and secondary schools during the academic year 1986-1987. Statistics on the percentage of young people aged seven through nineteen enrolled in school have not been available since the Revolution. It is generally estimated that the percentages have remained similar to those before the Revolution: school attendance of about 78 percent of elementary-age children and less than 50 percent of secondary-age youth. Since the Revolution, higher education has experienced significantly more drastic changes than elementary and secondary education. The university campuses became centers of conflict between students who supported a thorough desecularization of administrations, faculties, and curricula and students who wanted to retain a secular system. There were violent clashes at several universities in the 1979-1980 school year; as a result the government closed all 200 institutes of higher learning in April 1980. The universities then were purged of professors and students considered insufficiently Islamic and were not completely reopened until the fall of 1983. When the colleges resumed classes, they enrolled only a fraction of the 1979 to 1980 student body. At the University of Tehran, Iran's largest, student enrollment was reduced from 17,000 to 4,500; similarly large declines were registered at other institutions. The decline in the number of female students was even more dramatic: whereas on the eve of the revolution women had constituted about 40 percent of the total number of students in higher education, after 1983 they formed only 10 percent. An educational problem in Iran since the early twentieth century has been the general perception among the upper and middle classes that foreign education is superior to Iranian. Thus, there have been large numbers of Iranians studying abroad. As long as the foreign-educated students returned to Iran, they were able to apply their skills for the overall benefit of the country; however, under both the monarchy and the Republic, thousands of Iranians have elected not to return to their homeland, creating a veritable "brain drain." Since the Revolution, the government has tried to discourage Iranians from going abroad to study, although it has not prevented the practice. Health and Welfare Medical Personnel and Facilities According to the Iranian Medical Association (IMA), in 1986 there were 12,300 physicians and 1,700 dentists in Iran. Medical support personnel of all kinds were in short supply, with the total number of nurses estimated at around 7,000. There were about 550 hospitals throughout the country, with a total of 62,100 beds. The regional distribution of medical personnel was uneven. The ratio of patients to physicians in 1986 averaged more than 1,000 to 1 for Tehran, Mashhad, Esfahan, and Shiraz; more than 2,000 to 1 in all other large cities (with more than 100,000 in population); and more than 4,500 to 1 elsewhere. An estimated 70 percent of all specialists practiced in Tehran. Even before the Revolution there was a high rate of emigration of physicians, most of whom settled in the United States. In March 1976 when there were 12,196 physicians practicing in Iran, there were an estimated 10,000 other Iranian physicians practicing abroad. During the revolution there was a major exodus of physicians; the IMA has estimated that about 7,000--40 percent of the total--have left the country since the Revolution, contributing to a severe shortage. The Islamic Republic has sought to increase the number of all medical personnel and to expand medical facilities. Health clinics and dispensaries have been constructed in lower income neighborhoods of the large cities, in small towns, and in villages. The medical schools at Tehran and Shiraz universities have developed programs for training paramedical personnel, and more students have been admitted to medical schools. Nevertheless, the facilities for training physicians remained inadequate, and fewer than 750 doctors were graduated from medical schools between 1980 and 1986. The IMA has said that Iran needs a total of at least 50,000 physicians to provide the whole population with minimally adequate health care. Health Hazards and Preventive Medicine During the 1970s, apart from a high infant mortality rate, the chief causes of death were gastrointestinal, respiratory, and parasitic diseases. The incidence of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease was increasing. Several contagious diseases, such as grippe and influenza, conjunctivitis, scarlet fever, whooping cough, pulmonary tuberculosis, and typhoid fever were common. There is no evidence that the incidence of these diseases or the major causes of mortality have declined during the 1980s. Drug addiction was a serious problem before the Revolution and reportedly has worsened since 1979. The Ministry of Health estimated in 1986 that there may have been as many as 1 million addicts in the country. Opium is the most commonly used drug. Since the end of the nineteenth century, opium has been smoked as a recreational drug at social gatherings. The Shia clergy have tried to discourage this practice by declaring the use of opium religiously prohibited. There is also some heroin use in the country. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Ministry of Health carried out vaccination campaigns in both urban and rural areas. Periodic campaigns have included immunizations against measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, and poliomyelitis for infants and children, and general vaccinations against smallpox and cholera. These campaigns have prevented the outbreak of major epidemics. Water Supply and Sanitation In the mid-1980s, polluted water supplies remained one of the main reasons for the high incidence of parasitic and gastrointestinal diseases. Tehran and other large cities had chlorinated water systems, but contaminated water has continued to be a major problem in the smaller towns and villages. The disposal of waste also remained unsatisfactory. Tehran in 1986 still did not have a sewage system serving the entire city. Most of the other cities had only partial sewage systems, and in small towns and villages there were none at all. Welfare Religious and social traditions profoundly influence attitudes toward welfare. There is a general belief that fate determines living conditions, but most Iranians feel an obligation to help the needy in accordance with religious tenets. This idea has been reinforced since the Revolution by the persistent exhortations of the clergy to help the poorest people in society, the mostazafin. The giving of alms (zakat) is one of the mandatory obligations of the Islamic faith. As a consequence, donors of real property and monetary bequests are anxious that their names be attached to their gifts. Charitable donations may be distributed at any time, but Friday, the day of congregational prayers, is regarded as a particularly appropriate day, and even those of modest means regularly distribute food to the poor. There is a long history in Iran of wealthy individuals' bequeathing part of their estates in the form of perpetual endowments, vaqfs, for a specified charitable purpose (see Religious Institutions and Organizations, this ch.). The last dynasty established the Pahlavi Foundation, which funded programs ranging from low-cost housing projects to the preservation of national relics. After the Revolution, the government took over administration of the Pahlavi Foundation and renamed it the Foundation for the Disinherited (Bonyad-e Mostazafin). Some of its former programs, such as granting scholarships and operating cooperatives, have been continued, but others were redesigned or dropped entirely in favor of new projects that are in accord with religious ideology. Government-funded social insurance programs have not been as important as the private vaqfs. The first workers in the country to benefit from a public retirement program were government employees. Legislation during the 1960s and 1970s provided for the extension of social security benefits to broader categories of employees, but by the time of the Revolution less than 10 percent of the total work force was actually covered by social security. The government of the Islamic Republic has said that extending coverage to all employed persons is one of its priorities, but as of 1986 no information was available about what measures may have been adopted to extend coverage. The first public housing projects were built in the 1960s in the southern part of Tehran. These were developments of small, single- family homes that were sold to the occupants at subsidized cost over several years. Public housing projects expanded to other cities during the 1970s. After the Revolution, the Republic continued to budget funds for the construction of low-cost public housing, although prior to 1985 its efforts in this area focused primarily on the provision of interest-free, long-term loans to encourage private construction on public land. Since 1985 the government has built low-cost public housing, particularly in Tehran and in large cities that suffered considerable damage during the war, such as Ahvaz and Dezful. Priority for such housing has been given to widows of men killed during the war. This housing is an example of the kind of social program that the revolutionary regime felt ideologically committed to provide as a way of assisting the less fortunate, the mostazafin. Other examples of concern for the poorer elements of society were the construction of elementary schools, bathhouses, and health clinics in villages and low- income urban areas and the emphasis on religious charitable giving to the disadvantaged. This concern for the deprived members of society was a traditional element of Islam that had been neglected to a considerable degree under the shah but which was being emphasized by the revolutionary government. * * * The most complete analysis of Iranian society prior to the Revolution is Iran Between Two Revolutions by Ervand Abrahamian. Roots of Revolution by Nikki R. Keddie is an excellent study of the cultural tensions between the secularized middle and upper classes and the religiously oriented bazaar class, and it examines the relationship of this social conflict to the Revolution. The background of Shia clerical opposition to secular state policies is thoroughly examined in Shahrough Akhavi's Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran. The most detailed study of social class divisions is Iran: Dictatorship and Development by Fred Halliday. A detailed analysis of several important policies implemented during the early years of the Republic is The Reign of the Ayatollahs by Shaul Bakhash. A fascinating fictionalized account of how the secularized classes have reacted to the Islamic Republic is Sorraya in a Coma by Ismail Fassih. (For further information and complete citations, see Bibliography.)