TEHRAN – A sum of 60 trillion rials (around $100 million) has been allocated to completing semi-finished educational projects by the end of the current Iranian year (March 20, 2025), an official with the Ministry of Education has said.

During the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration, 33,000 classrooms were built and retrofitted with benefactors contributing to half of the funding, IRNA quoted Hamid-Reza Khanmohammadi as saying.

Referring to the construction of schools for Refugees, the official said  111 schools have been built by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the past 10 years.

Highlighting that 600,000 foreign students are currently utilizing the educational capacities of Iran’s schools, Khanmohammadi said 22 schools are currently being constructed, and 6 projects are proposed in challenging locations, which are under review.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees should help construct up to 50 schools per year, he stressed.

Per capita education space extended

“Per capita education space has extended to five meters and 35 cm as eight schools were constructed on a daily basis on average, ISNA quoted Education Minister Reza-Morad Sahraei as saying in June.

Also, some 2,700 sports and educational spaces have been built in the same period, the official stressed.

In August 2023, the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipment of Schools announced that the number of newly built schools across the country has increased by 104 percent over the past two years.

$335m a year on foreign students

In August 2023, Mehdi Fayyazi, the deputy minister of education for international affairs and schools abroad, said some $335 million is spent annually on the education of foreign students in Iran.

The figure is tantamount to 527 dollars per student, he added.

About 22,000 classrooms nationwide have been allocated to the education of foreign nationals, IRNA quoted Fayyazi as saying.

"Some 17 million euros in international aid is received annually to spend on the education of foreign students,” he said, highlighting that the figure is very low."

MT/MG