Iranian schools will welcome students under conditions where the rising educational expenses, including a 50% increase in the price of stationery items, have caused the academic year to start with high costs for students and their parents. One of the first consequences of this situation is more students dropping out from education.
According to the regime’s Tejaratnews website on September 20, based on a poll by Sarmayeh polling Agency, on average, the price of stationery items alone has experienced a 50% increase.
According to the results obtained in the survey by this center, about 60% of Tehran households pay tuition fees for their children’s education, and more than 53% of students in Tehran province walk to school because transportation costs have increased by more than 50% compared to last year.
The state-run Didban Iran website also reported on the shock of parents after seeing the prices in the new academic year and wrote: “After encountering astronomical prices, people are forced to buy one or two essential items.”
The website quoted one of the parents as saying: “With a budget of 10 million rials for buying stationery items, I spent an 8 million rials (approximately $16) on notebooks and a 2 million rials (approximately $4) on colored pens… My daughter did not need a backpack and school uniform this year, otherwise we didn’t know where to get them.”
Field reports from Didban Iran show that if the back-to-school shopping includes shoes, backpack, notebooks, pencils, and pens, families would have to spend an average of 60 million rials (approximately $120).
School uniforms are also one of the costly items in the back-to-school expenses, to the extent that, according to Didban Iran, the price of school uniforms varies from 10 to 15 million rials (approximately $20 to $30) in public schools.
The regime’s Arman Meli newspaper also reported on September 21, on the eve of the new academic year, about installment purchases of stationery items and wrote: “The stationery market that used to be bustling in the last days of summer, and students eagerly purchased all the necessary stationery, is now affected by inflation, and there is no sign of the bustling market of the past.”
Furthermore, the newspaper Jahan-e Sanat, quoting the head of the Hamedan province Stationery Union, reported, “We are witnessing a 50% increase in the price of stationery items in the market, and the market conditions are not favorable compared to previous years, with people’s purchasing power significantly reduced.”
Mousa Farzanian, the head of the Union of Stationery and Engineering Supplies, also told the website Eghtesaad24 that due to the increase in prices, people’s purchasing power has decreased, and they currently manage expenses and make purchases periodically so that they can provide the necessary items for their children for school and buy the remaining items throughout the year.
In the current situation, inflation and high prices in smaller cities in Iran manifest themselves in a way that one of the first consequences is the dropout of students from education.
In this regard, the Education Department of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province has announced that out of 17,000 first-grade students, 3,700 students lack the ability to purchase textbooks and meet the necessary conditions to prepare for their new classes.
The ILNA news agency reported on poverty in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and its impact on school dropout due to economic difficulties. Some parents expressed concern about the alarming increase in the required items for their students in the new academic year and stated that their economic conditions are not suitable for their children to continue their education, forcing them to prevent their children from continuing their studies.
Hamzeh Bagherinejad, the Deputy of Literacy Movement Organization of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, however, attributed factors other than financial poverty as effective in student dropouts, stating that “cultural poverty, neglected children, employment, early marriage, incurable diseases, and mental retardation” are among other reasons for students’ dropout in this province.
According to Bagherinejad, identifying some of the dropout students due to the lack of residential addresses, contact numbers, and other means of communication with them is impossible.
The intensification of school dropout due to poverty in Iran comes at a time when the Iranian regime claims to provide free education and equal access to the education system for all individuals.
However, the Majlis (parliament) Research Center has a different opinion and in its latest report on this matter, it announced that in the academic year 2022-2021, more than 911,000 children have been left behind in the three levels of education.
Information from the regime’s Statistical Center indicates that the number of students dropping out of primary education has been increasing over a period of three academic years. For example, in the academic year 2016-2017, the number of dropouts from primary education was close to 162,000, which increased to over 210,000 in the academic year 2021-2022.
Statistics also show that 70% of dropouts are related to low-income brackets ranging from one to five.
The official point-to-point inflation rate in Iran is announced to be 63 percent, and Mohammad Bagheri Banaee, a member of the parliament’s economic commission, says that the poverty line has reached 300 million rials in Tehran.
According to the decision of the Labor Council, the minimum wage for single and inexperienced workers is set at 73 million rials (approximately $146), and for workers with two children, it is 85 million rials (approximately $170), only 21 percent higher than last year.
