Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0178/01788.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 17KB | 287 lines

$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
patie