TEHRAN – Allameh Tabatabai University of Tehran will award scholarships to 35 faculty members and talented students of Afghanistan this year, compared to 20 scholarships in previous years, ISNA reported on Monday.

At the seventh meeting of the Board of Trustees of Allameh Tabatabai University, it was approved that the university award scholarships to 35 faculty members and talented students of Afghanistan annually with the aim of expanding scientific and cultural ties between the academic community and the media of the two countries.

Accordingly, Allameh is the first Iranian university to offer scholarships to faculty members, talented students, and Afghan journalists since 2016 with the aim of expanding scientific and cultural ties between the two countries.

The number of recipients of this scholarship in previous years was 20, which has increased to 35 this year.

Supports for Afghan refugees in Iran

Iran is hosting the world's fourth-largest refugee community. The country has generously hosted approximately 1 million refugees for the past 30 years.

Scholarships will increase to 35 this year from 20 in previous years.Based on the latest statistics, over 3 million Afghans are living in Iran - some 780,000 Afghan refugees, over 2 million undocumented Afghans, and another 600,000 Afghan passport-holders with Iranian visas.

Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $477 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) every year on the education of foreign national students residing in the country, head of the international affairs department of the Ministry of Education Gholamreza Karimi said in March.

Over 474,000 Afghan national children are receiving education in Iran completely free of charge, he added.

Out of 970,000 foreigners (men and women) in working-age of 15 to 60 years, some 36,000 are under social insurance coverage in the country, head of Social Security Organization’s department for foreign nationals Ahmad Reza Khazaei said in July 2018.

Foreign nationals studying at Iranian universities

“Some 57,675 foreign nationals from 133 countries are studying in Iranian universities, many of whom have returned to their country with the outbreak of the pandemic,” Afshin Akhoundzadeh, an official at the Organization of Student Affairs has said.

However, 4,000 non-Iranian students have been applied with a scholarship, he further added.

Fifty-seven percent of the international students are studying for a master's degree, 27 percent for a bachelor's degree and 15 percent are educating to receive a Ph.D., while the remaining one percent study at other levels.

Law, Persian literature, and computer engineering are the top three fields of study for foreign students in Iran, while civil engineering, business management, political science, English language and literature, Quran and hadith sciences, international relations, and electrical engineering, and other majors with the highest number of non-Iranian students.

FB/MG