Almost everything in Iran has been influenced in some way by the Iranian regime’s medieval ideology. One of the main areas that have suffered the most is the country’s education system and its universities. Since the inception of this regime, it has shown its enmity with higher education, universities, and students.
As the regime’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini once said, the main cause of all major problems in the country is rooted in the universities. When he started his so-called cultural revolution, he closed the universities for several years and eliminated many of the country’s intellectuals. Now after 40 years, we are still witnessing the destructive effects of such a policy. Iranian universities are being removed from the world rankings.
The QS ranking is one of the most reliable international ranking systems that is conducted annually in England. Among the criteria for this ranking is the reputation of the university; the level of education; the number of citations to the articles and content produced by the university, and its access to international scientific indexes; the number of scholarships; and even the number of students enrolled.
According to the latest QS World University Rankings for 2023, none of Iran’s six major universities (Sanati Sharif, Amirkabir Industrial, Tehran, Elm and Sanat, Shiraz, and Beheshti) has been able to get anywhere near the top of the table in this ranking, in a global comparison of around 1,422 universities worldwide. In addition, none of the names of Iran’s university cities are included in the list of 120 student-friendly cities in the world.
The highest-ranking institution was the Sharif University of Technology which reached the rank of 380, the Amir Kabir University of Technology ranked at 443, Tehran’s rank went from 501 to 510, Science and Technology of Iran dropped nine ranks from 531 to 540, Shiraz dropped from 751 to 800, and finally Beheshti University had the furthest drop from 1001 to 1200.
Students’ livelihood and economic problems, the repressive environment of the university which kills the motivation for any progress in professors and students, the political and social challenges of the society that distorts the focus and perseverance of students and professors on progress and effort, the weakness and obsolescence of the educational system, and the backwardness of educational resources from the latest global scientific changes are the major reasons for the current situation.
The decline in the quality of education in 35 universities and institutions of higher education across Iran has made even Iraqi students shy away from enrolling. State news confirmed that the Iraqi government has removed 35 Iranian universities and educational institutions from its list of foreign higher education institutions. Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education stated that the degrees of these universities and higher education centers are not approved by the Iraqi government due to the decline in educational quality.
According to the state-run website Fararu, in a meeting with the Iraqi ambassador to Iran, the regime’s deputy minister of science in international affairs ridiculously claimed that the removal of 35 Iranian universities and educational institutions from the list of foreign higher education institutions approved by the Iraqi government, “is because many of the scientific productions of these universities are in the fields of humanities, they are not highly ranked in the Times and Shanghai rankings.”
Contrary to the opinion of this regime official, more than half of the removed centers are specialized technical, engineering, or medical universities, whose field of activity and educational category have nothing to do with humanities.
