From plans to shorten university degrees to the exclusion of hundreds of thousands of special-needs children, Iran’s education system faces structural breakdown.
Iran’s education system is facing a multi-layered crisis, driven by chronic budget shortages, mismanagement, and policy decisions that threaten both academic quality and social equity.
Recent reports from regime-affiliated media reveal two alarming fronts: proposed reductions in university study periods and the large-scale exclusion of children with special needs from formal education.
According to Ham-Mihan, the Ministry of Science is advancing a plan to reduce the length of undergraduate and postgraduate programs, a move that has sparked strong opposition from university professors.
Faculty members warn that shortening academic programs would severely damage educational quality while doing little to address the underlying financial collapse of universities.
University lecturers note that each year removed from degree programs could reduce ministry expenditures by up to 30 percent.
However, they stress that this cost-cutting comes at the expense of academic credibility, curriculum depth, and the international standing of Iranian universities.
Rather than reforming funding structures or diversifying institutional missions, the ministry appears to be pursuing what critics describe as a purely financial fix to near-bankrupt universities.
Karen Abrinia, a University of Tehran professor and secretary of the Iranian University Professors’ Trade Union, said that existing bachelor’s and postgraduate programs are already designed according to established standards.
He emphasized that reducing study periods would further limit specialized coursework, especially given the already heavy burden of compulsory general and ideological units. Any additional cuts, he warned, would directly undermine the training of competent professionals.
Parallel to the crisis in higher education, Farhikhtegan reports a stark failure in Iran’s approach to special-needs education. While approximately three percent of Iran’s student-age population—around 500,000 children—fall into the category of children with special needs, at least one-third receive no educational coverage at all. More than half are excluded even from pre-school education.
Currently, Iran’s Exceptional Education Organization covers only seven categories of disabilities, including visual, hearing, physical-motor impairments, multiple disabilities, intellectual disabilities, autism, and specific learning disorders.
This limited scope stands in sharp contrast to international standards, which often recognize up to 23 distinct groups requiring specialized educational support.
Excluded groups in Iran include children with speech and language disorders, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, hospitalized children with serious illnesses such as cancer, children with behavioral disorders, socially vulnerable children, child laborers, and street children.
Despite official claims of a 17-fold expansion in special-needs education since the early 1990s, structural gaps persist, leaving hundreds of thousands without access to basic learning opportunities.
Taken together, these developments point to a systemic failure in Iran’s education governance.
Universities are being pushed toward academic degradation to survive financially, while vulnerable children are effectively erased from the education system.
Rather than serving as a driver of social mobility and national development, education in Iran is increasingly shaped by austerity, exclusion, and ideological constraints—deepening inequality and undermining the country’s future human capital.