Local officials in several provinces of Iran, including Tehran Province, have announced school closures due to air pollution and the spread of COVID-19 and influenza.
Hassan Abbasnejad, secretary of Tehran Province’s emergency air-pollution task force, announced on Friday, December 5, that due to the emergency air-pollution conditions, elementary schools in Tehran city and province—except for Firouzkouh, Malard, Robat Karim, and Qarchak—will be closed on Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7, and students will receive their lessons “online.”
He also stated that truck traffic in the capital is banned around the clock, except for vehicles transporting perishable goods or fuel.
School closures in other provinces
According to Iranian media, schools in Alborz Province will be closed on Saturday, December 6, due to air pollution; schools and universities in Chaharmahal-and-Bakhtiari Province will be closed on Saturday due to influenza; all schools, universities, and educational centers in Kurdestan Province will be closed on Saturday because of the spread of influenza; and kindergartens, preschools, and schools in Hormozgan Province—including Kish Island—will be closed on Saturday and Sunday due to influenza.
Conditions in several other provinces and cities—such as Isfahan Province—are similar, and schools have been closed.
In some cities, such as Isfahan, the cause of closures has been announced as “a combination of influenza and air pollution.”
Earlier, Iranian health authorities had stated that COVID-19 has also spread alongside influenza.
Ghobad Moradi, head of the Center for Communicable Disease Management in Iran’s Ministry of Health, announced on November 19 the spread of COVID-19, saying: “Although COVID-19’s share is low, continuous monitoring of it and other causes continues, because any respiratory agent can mutate and cause more severe disease.”
Influenza season in Iran begins in November and continues until March.
This is not the first time schools in Iran have been closed due to various reasons, including air pollution, energy crises, or COVID-19 outbreaks.
Academic decline among students due to repeated closures
Previously, Ali Farhadi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, had warned that repeated school closures in Iran have negatively affected the quality of students’ learning.
On March 22, Farhadi stated in an interview with the state-run news agency that one day of school closure costs about 10 trillion rials (approximately 8.7 million dollars), and virtual education cannot be an effective substitute for in-person learning.
Iran’s Statistical Center Reports Rise in School Dropout Rates
In recent years, experts have repeatedly warned about the academic decline among Iranian students.
Masoud Kabiri, a faculty member at the Education Research Institute, warned in January 2025 that two out of every five Iranian students lack effective learning, and that 70% of boys in rural schools fail to reach the minimum expected learning standards.
Rezvan Hakimzadeh, deputy for elementary education at the Ministry of Education, stated in November 2024 that 40% of students suffer from learning poverty, adding that this significantly reduces their chances of academic and professional success in the future.
She described learning poverty as a condition in which some students, despite being present in school, fail to properly acquire basic literacy skills such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and speaking.
Gholamali Afrooz, a professor at the University of Tehran, also stated in November 2024 that only 70% of Iranian students who enter elementary school go on to complete high school.
