TEHRAN – Scholarships will be awarded to 100 talented students of the Islamic world studying in Iranian universities at the master’s and doctoral levels in basic sciences, Sa’dollah Nasiri, the chancellor of Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, said.

He made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the International Year of Basic Sciences on Wednesday.

Proclaimed for 2022 by the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly 2 in December 2021, the day aims to stress that the applications of basic sciences are vital for advances in medicine, industry, agriculture, water resources, energy planning, environment, communications, and culture.

On this occasion, it was decided to grant 100 post-doctoral recruitment capacity or study opportunities in basic sciences to doctoral graduates or faculty of neighboring and Islamic countries to put research on the agenda under the supervision of the country’s leading professors, Nasiri added.

He went on to note that the birthday anniversary of Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (March 4) is proposed to be approved as the national day of basic sciences in the Iranian calendar.

Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern geodesy", and the first anthropologist.

520,000 foreign students in Iran

The Iranian minister of foreign affairs has said that more than 520,000 foreign students in Iran study for free and that the vaccination of Afghan asylum seekers has been considered and taken on a par with that of Iranian citizens.

Some 57,675 college students from 133 countries are studying in Iranian universities, many of whom have returned to their country with the outbreak of the pandemic.

Some 30,600 of the whole students are studying in universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, while 25,000 others are receiving education in Azad University, and about 2,000 in medical universities.

Fifty-seven percent of the international students are studying for a master's degree, 27 percent for a bachelor's degree, and 15 percent for a Ph.D. degree, 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, electrical engineering, and other majors with the highest number of non-Iranian students.

FB/MG