Thirty Years Later Iran
is Still Trying to Catch Up
Before the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 many students would frequently study abroad to further their education. Many of these students would go to graduate school in the United States; in fact in 1979 the 51,300 Iranian students in the United States were the single largest group of foreign students in the country (Labi 14).
Now today less than 3,000 Iranian students study abroad in the United States according to 2004 Unesco figures (Labi 14).
Even Marjane Satrapi, author of The Complete Persepolis, believes that students should study abroad in order to become more knowledgeable and open-minded (Satrapi 2).
She believes this may be a big part of Iran’s problems as most students do not ever get the chance to study abroad, which leaves them with a small sided view of the world. (Satrapi 2) It became increasingly difficult to leave Iran during to the time of Islamic rule. During this time Iran was completely against anything from the West and Iranian universities were not internationalized or competitive with other universities not in Iran. The Islamic rule has separated Iran from academic and cultural connections to the western world causing Iranian schools to fall behind academically.
From 1941 to 1979 the Pahlavi Dynasty was in control of Iran and while there were many problems with their reign of power one aspect they excelled with was education. The education system in Iran was on par with many European countries, but that was because the curriculum was in fact European (Hamdhaidari 21).
The Coursework on Argument In Favour Of Students Studying Abroad
Studying abroad not only can benefit for International students, but also have much positive effect on the countries which admit these overseas students to the universities. We should encourage young people to study abroad because of these two aspects of benefit. 1. Benefits of students: a. A chance to have the further high quality education, and absorb new and advanced knowledge. This will help ...
Many foreigners had a huge impact on what the curriculum should be in Iran. This would seem like a good thing and for many reasons it was, but with the curriculum being European it left out a lot of the culture and history of Iran. Many people believe it was this educational system that pushed the younger generations to desire change in Iran. Universities soon became the center of political activity in Iran and were extremely influential on the changes that would come in 1979 (Hamdhaidari 23).
At the time these students did not realize what would happen to the educational system during and after the Islamic Revolution. Universities would be closed for almost three years as the radicals help purge the large numbers of liberal professors. This forced many students to leave Iran, just Marjane Satrapi who’s parents decided to send her to Austria. This was not uncommon as many parents wanted their children to get a proper education, something they could not receive in Iran. Ali Khamenei was the founder and head of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council which was responsible for shutting the universities down for three years. Khamenei said, “We are not afraid of economic sanctions or military intervention. What we are afraid of is Western universities and the training of our youth in the interests of West or East” (Hamdhaidari 22) Khamenei and the rest of the council wanted to get rid of the western influence in Iranian schools and make them completely Iranian (Hamdhaidari 22).
Iran was thus shut off from the western world which caused major setbacks in Iran’s cultural and academic development.
More than thirty years later the campuses are beginning to change up, but there is still a long way to go. There have been promises of academic freedoms and reforms, but things are still coming along slowly. The days are gone when students would confront their professors and demand to know why they were wearing neck ties, which were banned as a sign of western influence, but the curriculum has only seen some changes. Now with so many students demanding higher education in Iran the use of non-profit, private institutions is becoming much more popular. There are now over 700,000 students attending the 135 campus of The Islamic Azad University, which unlike state school which are free costs around $400 per year for undergraduates (Bollag 52) These campuses have, according to Hamid Rasteh of the Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education, “brought higher education to the farthest comers of the country, allowing many people to change their lives” (Bollag 53).
The Essay on Why Do First Year University Students Drop Out?
This writing assignment will discuss namely the most evident dilemmas experienced by firs year students such as adjustments to campus life, socializing and peer pressure at campus and also the lack of finance. Adjustments: There is a vast difference between campus life and school, and many students do not realise this initially. When the first month has passed, the new environment should have made ...
So although the curriculum is still in need of academic freedoms and reforms at least higher education has become much more readily available to the people of Iran. The next big step is to take the power of education of the hands of government and give it local boards of trustees. Which would get the people more involved in the education of their children instead of leaving it to government officals. This is already being done in some parts of Iran and it is clearly having an impact.
Students and professors are working hard to make the universities more academically free, but pressure from the government is making it much harder. “We hope the universities will become more intellectually open,” says Gholam-Abbas Tavassoli, the University of Tehran sociologist (Bollag 53).
For that to happen acts of intimidation must end and “people at the universities must have a sense of security” (Bollag 53).
It is hard to expect change and reform from a government that is consistently trying to prevent it. So, even though it is clear students and professors alike both want more academic freedoms they do not feel safe enough to pursue it all the time. Small steps are being taken, but it is clear this process will take many years. Especially when Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for conservative students to oppose liberal and secular faculty members, which is exactly what happened in the “cultural revolution” in 1979 (Iran’s Leaders 43).
The Term Paper on Higher Education Students University Universities
There have been many developments in higher education since 1992, including the rapid increase in student numbers, the introduction of tuition fees and the choice to study in different ways. These new options have been made available through new courses such as General National Vocational Qualifications (G NVQs) and the expansion of the Internet. This essay will discuss how these changes have come ...
Yet even still the fight is strong within the Iranian people who want to see changes made. Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a professor of international relations at Tehran University, said of Ahmadinejad’s comments, “I doubt that anyone inside the universities would take them as serious statements” (Iran’s Leaders 43).This shows the determination that students and professors have to make their universities more academically free.
The western world has an extremely hard time understand the culture in Iran and how they could prevent the basic freedoms westerns enjoy. The thought of wearing a veil or being forced to cover some part of your body is hard enough, but academic freedoms are being taken as well. This is clearly displayed in the novel The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, where she leaves the country to study in Austria and then returns to Iran. Throughout the time Satrapi spends in Austria she learns how difference other countries are from Iran. She is able to see why Iran needs serious changes and that the things they are saying on television are not always true (Satrapi, Persepolis 58).
By watching everything unfold outside Iran Satrapi discovers a new sense of the situation and thinks differently about the Islamic Revolution. Then when she returns to Iran there are between 500,000 and 1,000,000 causalities in the war leaving Iran in a rebuilding state(Satrapi, Persepolis 106).
This makes change in the academic system even hard to achieve because the most pressing need is the rebuild their country. Again this situation pushed many students to leave Iran and study elsewhere, but many did not return after their studies were finished. Even in Satrapi’s case, when she left Iran a second time to study in France she did not return back to Iran(Satrapi, Persepolis 190).
This was the case with many students in Iran and it is not hard to understand why they did not want to return to Iran.
Iranian students and professors are hoping for a better curriculum in Iran so that they can better educate the general population. Now with private schools like The Islamic Azad University school has become more accessible, but the curriculum is still no better. In order to change the curriculum the Iranian leaders will need tp begin to accept some things from the western world. Just as the Pahlavi Dynasty had western influence the new government will need this influence as well, just not to the extend of the Pahlavi Dynasty. Hopefully a system with a board of trusties can be set up in order to determine the curriculum instead of leaving it in the government’s incapable hands. This would hopefully allow for the curriculum to have a western influence, but also keep the Iranian history and culture that was lost before the Islamic Revolution. If this is allowed to happen Iran will have the tools needed in order to catch up to the western schools they have fallen so far behind.
The Essay on Curriculum Assessment
Assessment is an important part of our curriculum framework as it both enhances learning and provides opportunities for students to reflect on what they know, understand, and can do. It also provides the guidance, the tools and the incentive for the teachers and the students, as well as the curriculum makers, for them to become more competent, more skillful and better at understanding on how ...
Works Cited
Bollag, Burton. “20 Years After the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s Campuses Begin to Loosen Up.” Chronicle of Higher Education 46.27 (2000): 52-55. Print.
Hamdhaidari, Shokrollah. “Education during the Reign of the Pahlavi Dynasty in Iran (1941-1979).” Teaching in Higher Education 13.1 (2008): 17-28. Print.
“Iran’s Leader Pressures Academics.” Chronicle of Higher Education 53.4 (2006): 43. Print.
Labi, Aisha. “Growing Isolation Frustrates Iranian Academics.” Chronicle of Higher Education 54.48 (2008): 14. Print.
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2007. PDF format. (cited as Satrapi, Persepolis)
Satrapi, Marjane. “On Writing Persepolis.” Randomhouse.com. Random House, 04 Nov. 2008. Web. 21 Nov. 2011. . (cited as Satrapi, Persepolis)
