TEHRAN - The Ministry of Education is planning to employ up to 50,000 teachers as the administration has decided to give a boost to the education sector in the country once schools are fully recovered from closures imposed during the coronavirus pandemic.

A nationwide exam for recruiting new teachers will be held before the end of the current calendar year in late March, Education Minister Yusef Nouri said on Thursday.

The Ministry of Education had obtained a government permit to recruit an extra 15,000 teachers it needs to ease staff shortages in Iranian schools, he added, Fars reported.

Education Ministry authorities had earlier indicated that the Iranian government had issued permits for the recruitment of 34,731 teachers across the country.

Iran recruits its teachers from a higher education system where applicants must go through at least four years of study and training, according to Press TV.

However, the law allows emergency recruitment programs covering the graduates of other universities and seminaries if the Education Ministry is faced with shortages in some staff areas.

The new recruitment drive comes as Iran is still struggling with repeated school closures because of new waves of the coronavirus pandemic.

Classes have been held several days a week in elementary and secondary schools in Iran since the country expanded its coronavirus vaccination coverage to nearly 70 percent of the population late last year.

It also comes despite Iran’s strained finances because of the U.S. sanctions and the economic impacts of the pandemic.

The Iranian parliament passed a law in December ordering the administrative government to raise wages paid to the teachers in the country by up to 15 percent.

Online education

Around 92.5 percent of Iranian students aged 12-18 have so far received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine and some 75 percent are inoculated with the second dose.

All educational centers in Iran have been closed since February 2020.

In order for students to keep in touch with their studies, the Ministry of Education launched a homegrown mobile application on April 9, 2020, called SHAD, providing students with distance learning programs. More than 60 percent of students and 94 percent of teachers attended 64 percent of classes through the SHAD app, whose acronym in Persian translates as the Students Education Network.

Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) also began to broadcast televised educational programs on a daily basis after school closures.

MG