The average years of study per person is eight in Iran and measures should be taken to enhance the rate, said Ali Baqerzadeh Farouji, deputy education minister and head of the Literacy Movement Organization, at a session of the Education and Literacy Advocacy Council of Shirvan County, North Khorasan Province.
“Education opportunity for all is a top priority for the government,” he said ISNA reported.
During the past decade, educators and policymakers have been focusing on the family as a learning unit and supporting parents in their role as the first teachers.
Farouji stressed the role of a literate parent on the destiny of their children, citing it a factor far more influential than the family’s economic status or the student’s intellectual quotient.
“Over 90% of those who drop out of school have illiterate or undereducated parents,” he said.
Appraising the important role of literacy, he said, “Knowledge is power, a literate mother can help reduce the mortality rate of her children by 50%, and literacy can help a farmer boost agricultural production through lesser water consumption.”
Additionally, why children succeed or fail in school is one of the most challenging questions for academic researchers.
Findings from global research on both adult education and early childhood intervention programs show that the mother’s level of education is one of the most significant factors influencing children’s academic achievements.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has taken great strides to promote education, particularly among girls and children in remote areas.
More than 13 million students along with 400,000 Afghan children commenced the new school year on September 23 in 105,000 schools and 750 educational districts under the auspices of one million educators.
About 85% of Iran’s adult population is literate.
Yet, there are challenges as nearly eight million of the total 80 million population aged 10-49 is either uneducated or undereducated (exiting the education cycle before finishing primary school), while 10 million aged six and over in both urban and rural areas are absolutely illiterate.
Stating that disadvantages of illiteracy go beyond the inability to read or write, Farouji said, “Government’s efforts to address illiteracy and ensure quality education for all are admirable.”
Generating a personal literacy level databank for every citizen under 50, creating flexibility in education protocols and methods, increasing variety in study materials, and providing facilities for vulnerable groups such as the disabled, prison inmates, nomads, villagers, and workers are among the measures introduced.
Global Data
In developed countries, adults have an average of 12 years of school (2010 data) compared with 6.5 years for those in developing countries.
This gap is not projected to close any time soon. If the trend of today’s slow pace of change continues, “it will take at least 65 years for average adults in developing countries to reach 12 years of school and that stretches to 85 years for adults living in low-income countries. When it comes to education, the differences between the developed and developing worlds remain stark,” brookings.edu reports.
There has been a convergence in the number of pupils enrolling in primary school, with many more young children in developing countries now having access to school.
But when it comes to average levels of attainment—how much children have learned and how long they have spent in school—there remains a massive gap.
The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions. As one of Washington’s oldest think tanks, it conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development. In the University of Pennsylvania’s 2014 Global Go to Think Tanks Report, Brookings is ranked the most influential in the world.
