Islamic Republic of Iran has been unable to hire new teachers that are required by its Ministry of Education, local media reported while school year started on Monday.
Iran’s Ministry of Education has stated that the Iranian education system lacks at least 110,000 teachers for various educational levels.
The head of the Hekmat Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies said on Saturday that, “one of the major problems in Iran’s education system is the problem of teachers’ retirement and the shortage of teachers, while governments have not acted properly.”
Saleh Rashid Haji Khajehlou told Iran’s Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, that, “six years after the ratification of the Document of Fundamental Transformation of Education, unfortunately, there is no serious will to implement the general policies to develop the education system.”
The Document of Fundamental Transformation of Education, which was ratified by the parliament in 2011 and signed by the president at that time, defines the policies of the Iran’s educational system and called for employing new teachers.
Shortage of teachers leads to the overpopulated classrooms which in turn reduces the quality of learning. To fill the gap, Iran’s Ministry of Education always opts for employing the already retired teachers, and in rare cases employs young and educated teachers. But in both cases, the government always recruits those who are ideologically pro-regime.
Mismanagement and huge financial corruptions have also led to a massive budget deficit in Iran’s Ministry of Education. Mohsen Haji Mirzaie the proposed Minister of Education had announced on September 2, during a public session of the parliament, that the Ministry of Education has a deficit of $1.5 billion.
