Twenty percent of schools in Iran are dilapidated, and there is a distinction between “hazardous” and “dilapidated” schools, according to Majid Abdollahi, the Technical and Supervisory Deputy of the Organization for the Renovation of Schools.
Abdollahi emphasized that students are not allowed to study in “hazardous” schools, stating, “In Isfahan, we had 14 schools affected by subsidence, and this year we did not allow students to study in these schools.”
Abdollahi stated that approximately 20,000 schools out of around 105,000 schools and 104,000 classrooms out of 540,000 classrooms are dilapidated.
According to Abdollahi, 6 percent of these classrooms, equivalent to 33,000 classrooms, need to be demolished and rebuilt.
This number of dilapidated schools in the country comes at a time when on August 13, the head of the Organization for the Renovation, Development, and Equipping of Schools announced the existence of 1,073 temporary schools (consisting of prefabricated structures) in the country based on initial identification.
The situation of schools referred to as “dilapidated” is particularly severe in small and remote cities. In this regard, the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on September 23 that students in the “Loudab” region in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province started the new academic year in schools lacking “desks and chairs, water pipelines, heating systems, and safety.”
According to ILNA’s report, quoting Kourosh Biniaz, the governor of Loudab, 35 schools in this region lack sanitary facilities and water pipelines, and in 45 schools, there are “no heating and safety equipment” at all. He stated that there are also 10 “temporary” schools in this province, and out of a total of 145 schools, only two schools are equipped with computer equipment and printers.
In response to the shortage of teachers in the country and the situation of more than 400,000 students being left without teachers, the Minister of Education announced the finalization of the decision on “discovering teaching talents” in the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution and stated, “Students who have the temperament and qualities of a teacher will be recruited into the education system and become teachers.”
Teacher shortage in the education system has become one of the challenges due to the elimination of “student teachers” and the retirement of a significant number of teachers. Reports indicate that in some schools, parents of students have been asked to come to school and act as teachers to prevent empty classrooms.
However, on November 1, despite widespread criticism from teachers, teacher unions, and some members of the regime’s Majlis (parliament), Reza Moradi Sahrayee, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, claimed that there are no “teacherless classes” in Iran.
Sahrayee’s statement contradicted the report by a member of the Parliament’s Education Commission on October 31, who revealed that 68,000 teachers had left the education system in Iran at the beginning of the academic year, leaving 100,000 classrooms without teachers. Mohammad Vahidi, in an interview with the state-run website “rouydad24,” acknowledged the serious challenge of teacher shortages and mentioned that 23,000 teachers had been hired for educational services but were prohibited from entering classrooms this year.
Mohammad Taghi Falahi, the Secretary of the Tehran Teachers Guild, also mentioned the severe budget deficit in education as one of the main factors contributing to the shortage of teachers for 23,000 classrooms, equivalent to approximately 460,000 students.
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The teacher shortage in schools has reached a point where the Shargh Daily website addressed the problem in a report, stating that some school principals have asked parents to attend classes and help students in reviewing the previous year’s lessons.
On September 23, some reports emerged indicating that amid the teacher shortage crisis, the Ministry of Education had prevented the continuation of the “student teacher” program.
Another recent controversy in the Ministry of Education was the compulsory call to prayer and the “requirement for students to send audio recordings of their prayers at home.” In response to the criticism surrounding this issue, Reza Moradi Sahrayee stated, “When we were criticized, we realized that what we were doing was right.”
In recent years, teachers in Iran have staged widespread protests, with hundreds of cases documented. The teachers’ demands in these protests include salary increases and equalization of salaries, as well as official employment. Many of their colleagues have been imprisoned as a result of these protests.
The Iranian regime allocates a negligible budget to education and retires experienced teachers, while significantly increasing the military budget. A look at Iran’s expensive interventions in the region reveals where the education budget for Iranian children is being spent.
