TEHRAN -- Afghanistan Higher Education Minister Sharif Faez conferring in Shiraz on Sunday with Shiraz University Chancellor Majid Ershad said, "Iranian universities are as significant as Western

He predicted the number of Afghan students in the next academic year would reach half a million, which will face them with shortage of teachers.

He added that a great number of Afghan professors, who have left Kabul, have not yet been returned home.

He said that before Taleban's takeover, Qoran was taught along with poetry from Sa'di and Hafiz in Afghanistan's religious schools.

Referring to Hafiz as a poet who opposed prejudice by writing poems, he said that under Taleban, all books written by Hafiz were burned at the order of Molla-Omar.

Also Afghan Deputy Minister of Education and Training in Charge of Orphans Affairs, Sediqeh Balkhi, told IRNA Sunday that Afghan girls and women are now admitted to all Afghan universities and schools

She added that less than six percent of Afghan women are educated.

According to another report, over 7,000 Afghan refugees have returned home from the southeastern Province of Sistan-Baluchestan since early April when Iran started a plan in cooperation with the Unite

Safar Eslami, the head of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA) in Zahedan, said the refugees, grouped in 1,557 families, had returned to Afghanistan from the Dogharoun and Mila

He said the progress of Afghan repatriation had been positive, and said such progress could be further boosted given the security currently prevailing in Afghanistan.

Eslami reiterated that there has been no report on the return of Afghan refugees to the province.