TEHRAN – The number of children who have begun or continued their education in elementary schools nationwide has increased in the current school year (started September 23), an official with the Ministry of Education has said.

Last year, some 210,000 children who had lost the opportunity to study in elementary schools were enrolled, Rezvan Hakimzadeh said, saying that the figure has decreased to 185,000 in the current year, IRNA reported.

In the current school year, a total of 8.79 million children have enrolled in elementary schools, compared with an anticipated figure of 8.765 million, she noted.

Last December, Shapour Mohammadzadeh, head of the Literacy Movement Organization, said the average literacy rate for the age group of 6-10 years is 97 percent, according to the latest national census.

Also, the literacy rate among the urban population is 98 percent and that of the rural population is 92 percent, he added.

Before the [1979] Islamic revolution, according to a census conducted in 1976, over 52.5 percent of the people were illiterate, he said, adding, only 24 percent of women in the country were literate. Also, the illiteracy gap between rural and urban areas was 35 percent.

In the Iranian calendar year ended in March 2021, the average literacy rate of women and men was reported 96 and 98 percent, respectively.

The average literacy rate of the youth (15-24 years old) in Iran is estimated at 97.4 percent, which is almost 6 percent higher than the global average.

In 2020, a national plan started to bring students who have dropped out of school in low-income and deprived areas of the country back to the education system.

The plan was launched as one of the reform plans of the Ministry of Education.

According to the statistics, about 800,000 who have completed primary education drop out of secondary education each year in the country.

MG