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Higher education in Iran

The history of the establishment of western style academic universities in Iran dates back to 1851 with the establishment of Dar-ol-fonoon – which was founded as a result of the efforts of the royal vizier Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Kabir, aimed at training and teaching Iranian experts in many fields of science and technology. However the existence of schools such as the Academy of Gundishapur provide examples of academic institutions of science that date back to ancient times.

It was in 1928 that Iran's first university, as we know it today, was proposed by an Iranian physicist. The University of Tehran (or Tehran University) was designed by a French architect, and built in 1934. Today, Tehran University is Iran's largest university with at least 32000 students.

After Tehran University, the establishment of other universities in Iran soon followed, and The Shah initiated projects to build Iranian universities modeled after American schools. Thus Pahlavi University (Shiraz University today) was modeled after The University of Pennsylvania, while Sharif University was copied after MIT. The 1979 revolution put an end to the massive US-Iran academic relations.

Today Iran has a large network of private, public, and state affiliated universities offering degrees in higher education. State-run universities of Iran are under the direct supervision of Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (for non-medical universities) and Ministry of Health and Medical Education (for medical schools).

Despite Iran's technological and industrial isolation due to political conditions in the past 25 years, Iran continues to maintain high levels of education and research in its major universities. Iranian students continue to win technical tournaments in Robotics, Computer Science, and other fields of engineering and science every year (example), and Iranians continue to increase the number of their publications in technical journals despite their highly limited facilities and resources.

To gain admission into universities, Iranian applicants must take a national entrance exam given once a year. Roughly two million applicants take part each year, but only the top 100,000 (or the top 5%) are admitted. To gain entry into the top caliber of schools, a rank of under 5000 is usually required. To gain entry into a medical school in Tehran, a rank of under 100.

Thus the high level of competition creates a tense atmosphere for many prospective students. Suicide and severe depression are quite common as a result in Iran's multimillion pool of college applicants. Many of the better students however eventually end up immigrating to western Europe and North America due to Iran's inability to absorb this highly talented potential workforce into its current job market after graduation. Iran's best faculty and skilled specialists also live outside Iran for the same reasons. Iran in fact has been topping the brain drain list for some time now.

Except for the Islamic Azad universities, tuition, room and board, is mostly paid for by the government. The more prestigious schools of Iran are:

For a more complete listing with links, see the List of universities in Iran.

Some schools offer degrees in conjunction with European Universities. The Institute of Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences in Zanjan, for example, sends students and faculty to Trieste, Italy for workshops, seminars, and summer schools. The Iranian government also offers fully paid scholarships for successful applicants to pursue PhD level studies in Britain.

Last updated: 05-15-2005 14:32:46