For the time being, 560,000 foreign students are studying in schools across the country, Education Minister Yousef Nouri said on Monday.

He considered the high density of students in classrooms as a serious problem and challenge in education, which has been exacerbated by the increase in migration to some urban areas and the outskirts of cities, IRNA reported.

Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $77 million) every year on the education of foreign national students. New classes should be created, but due to credit and property limitations, it is not possible to increase classes in these neighborhoods and areas in a quick and appropriate time, he further noted.

The new academic year will begin with 16 million students attending schools nationwide, Nouri said.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has placed special emphasis on “covering the education of foreign nationals” and this enabled these students to enjoy educational facilities and services just like Iranian students, he said.

Iran is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and some 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than 500,000 Afghan children- including undocumented Afghans and those who have newly arrived in Iran following the Taliban-takeover-are benefitting from Iran’s inclusive education policies, one of the most progressive in the world.

Many of the refugees living in Iran are the second and third generation, according to the UNHCR.

Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $77 million) every year on the education of foreign national students residing in the country, head of the international affairs department of the Ministry of Education Gholamreza Karimi said in March 2020.

Foreign students attend Iranian universities

Some 57,675 foreign nationals from 133 countries are studying in Iranian universities, 30,600 of whom are studying in universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, while 25,000 others are receiving education at Azad University and about 2,000 in medical universities.

Currently, foreign nationals constitute 1.64 percent of the country’s student population, which is about 0.14 percent higher than the goal set by the Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021), Mohammad Javad Salmanpour, the deputy head of the Organization for Student Affairs, said in April.

Twenty-five percent of the foreign students studying in Iranian universities are Afghan nationals, he added.

Afghan students attend Iranian universities in three ways; some enter the university by participating in the national entrance exam of Iran, and some others receive admission from universities that have non-Iranian student licenses. The third group also attended the country’s universities through scholarships, he explained.

Many of the Afghan students are studying master’s and Ph.D. courses in Iranian universities, he added.

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Each year, Iranian students start the school year on September 23, which marks the first day of autumn on the Iranian calendar, after a three-month summer vacation, while this year, in light of the pandemic, the school year will start a month later.

This year, education is in three forms of in-person, virtual, and television-based.

Last year’s reopening of schools was based on the cities in terms of the severity of infection, but now we are trying to reduce the disease transmission through social distancing, and vaccination, Alireza Kamraei, deputy minister of education stated.

Re-opening educational areas with lower student density, less populated classrooms, and greater social distancing, are the priorities, he noted.

He went on to say that in order to reopen schools, observance of health protocols, social distancing, and personal health of students and staff will be the basic principles, IRNA reported on Saturday.

Referring to the vaccination of teachers and school staff, he said that teachers already received the first dose of vaccination and the second dose has been started.

All educational centers in Iran were closed since February 2020.

In order for students to keep in touch with their studies, the Ministry of Education launched a homegrown mobile application on April 9, called SHAD, providing students with distance learning programs. More than 60 percent of students and 94 percent of teachers attended 64 percent of classes through the SHAD app, whose acronym in Persian translates as the Students Education Network.

Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) also began to broadcast televised educational programs on a daily basis after school closures.

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