TEHRAN - The Qatar Fund for Development has provided some five million euros to support Afghan students in Iran.

The Iranian Charity Schools Association signed a memorandum of understanding with the Qatar Fund for Development in Tehran on Sunday with the aim of supporting the education of Afghan students in Iran, Tasnim reported.

According to the agreement, the Qatar Fund for Development will provide €4,878 to support projects on educational opportunities for Afghan children who are out of school or at risk of dropping out.

The MOU was inked in a ceremony by Nasser Qofli, the head of the Iranian Charity Schools Association, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, the Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan, and Khalifa Jassim Al-Kuwari, the director general of the Qatar Fund for Development.

“It is our duty to provide a suitable educational environment in Iran for students of any nationality, especially Afghan students, therefore we consider ourselves the representative and the voice of Afghan children to support their right to access education,” Qofli highlighted.

The Qatari official, for his part, said: “Today, I visited one of the schools for Afghan students in the city of Tehran, and I appreciate the facilities and infrastructure that you provide to Afghan children.”

Kazemi-Qomi also pointed out that some 670,000 Afghan students are studying in Iranian schools. Meanwhile, about 34,000 Afghan nationals are studying in Iranian universities.

“We encourage them to return to their country after completing their education to participate in the prosperity and development of Afghanistan.”

The Ministry of Interior has announced to the Ministry of Education a list of 200,000 Afghan children who have the conditions to study in Iranian schools, Ali Hamedi, an official with the Education Ministry, said in November 2022.

The Ministry of Education has the capacity and potential to provide them with educational conditions and facilities equal to other Iranian students, he added.

 “We are trying our best to make Afghan students living in Iran go to school, and one of our approaches in this field is to help develop and increase standard educational physical spaces,” he noted.

“Our annual fund is partly financed by the Ministry and partly by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. If we allocate it to schools where only Afghans study, we cannot provide education to those who study with Iranian nationals,” he explained.

Afghan students can also take the exam of elite educational centers and compete in equal conditions with other Iranian students and continue their studies in exceptional talents schools, he stated.

The literacy rate among refugees has increased significantly in recent decades. So that the literacy rate of Afghan immigrants in Iran is higher than the number of literate people in Afghanistan, according to a report published in June 2022 by the research center of the Iranian Parliament (Majlis).

Iran is home to over 800,000 registered refugees and some 2.6 million undocumented Afghans. Today, more than 500,000 Afghan children- including undocumented Afghans and those who have newly arrived in Iran following the Taliban-takeover-are benefitting from Iran’s inclusive education policies, one of the most progressive in the world.

Many of the refugees living in Iran are second and third-generation, according to the UNHCR.

MG