Rezvan Hakimzadeh, the Primary Education Deputy of the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Education, announced that there are 164,000 children in Iran who have dropped out of school.
The official IRNA news agency quoted Hakimzadeh as saying, “We compare the statistics of children who reach the age of six with registration data, and those who are not registered in the system are considered dropouts.”
Experts believe that the statistics announced by the Ministry of Education only account for children who are unable to enter the education system, and that the overall number of dropouts is significantly higher.
These experts cite statistics from the regime’s Majlis (parliament) Research Center, which reported that the number of dropouts in the country in 2023 was 930,000.
On July 24, the Deputy Chairman of the Education Committee of the Majlis also stated that the number of children who have dropped out of school in Iran is 911,000, including 400,000 primary school students.
On August 19, 2023, Hakimzadeh also reported an increase in primary school dropouts, with the latest figures indicating that 160,000 primary school students have dropped out.
A review of official statistics shows that 70% of “dropouts” belong to the lowest five income deciles.
In this context, Mohammad Molavi, a member of the Education Committee of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stated in July that 279,000 children had dropped out of school due to “financial problems.”
This trend is also evident in the statistics provided by the Iranian Statistics Center, which reported that the number of dropouts in the 2022-2023 school year exceeded 929,000, an increase of 2% compared to the previous year.
In November 2023, an expert from the Majlis Research Center expressed concern about the situation of children in Iran, stating that 1.5 million children are at risk of dropping out, and 14 million children live in households that cannot afford even the basic food basket.
The over-40% inflation rate in recent years has caused housing costs to consume 70 to 80 percent of the expenses of low-income households, leaving them unable to meet other essential needs, including food, healthcare, clothing, and education.
