According to Hadi Mousavi Nik, an expert at the Majlis (Parliamentary) Research Center, one and a half million children in Iran are on the verge of dropping out of school, and 14 million children are living in households that cannot afford a proper diet.
Based on a video published in the media and social networks, Hadi Mousavi Nik stated that according to the statistics of the Ministry of Education, there are about 450,000 school dropouts, and approximately one and a half million children are at risk of dropping out of school.
According to Mousavi Nik, in terms of educational discrimination, only 12% of the students accepted with the top 3,000 ranks in the university entrance exam were from public schools.
This comes at a time when the trend of students dropping out of school in Iran has been accelerating, and experts are warning of its consequences.
On September 10, the former Minister of Education announced that, based on the statistics of the Majlis Research Center, the number of school dropouts in the country is 930,000, and these individuals constitute the “illiterate future.”
However, the important point is that the reason for children dropping out of school and the risk of an increase of one and a half million in this group is the same as the reason for 14 million children not having proper food, which is the lack of access to a minimum food basket.
Statistics show that 70% of school dropouts are from the first to fifth income deciles, which are under the most severe livelihood pressures.
These groups, mainly consisting of labor-class families and households covered by support organizations, and government employees, have incomes ranging from 30 to 80 million rials (approximately $60 to159). This is while various media have announced the minimum cost required for a proper food basket for a household in Tehran to be more than 300 million rials (approximately $595).
On November 5th, the state-run Tasnim news agency reported that due to the inability to provide housing, workers turn to rental housing, and 70 to 80 percent of their income is spent on housing, leaving them unable to meet other essential needs such as food, healthcare, clothing, and education.
The dropout rate in border areas and less developed regions is much higher than the national average. In August 2022, Hossein Ali Mirabdi, the former director general of education in Sistan and Baluchestan province, told Tasnim, “About 15 percent of the country’s school dropouts are in Sistan and Baluchestan province.”
In terms of livelihood, provinces such as Sistan and Baluchestan have significantly dire conditions. A member of the province’s representative assembly stated in March that “the staple food of the people in the province is bread, and unfortunately, they consume water, tomato paste, and bread as food, which means that living conditions in the province have become extremely difficult.”
