Higher Education Research in Iran: Quantitative Development and Qualitative Challenges
Over the last two decades of the twentieth century, Iran, like many societies, witnessed the expansion of higher education. During this period, governmental, nongovernmental, and private universities were established, and the number of faculty members and
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Higher Education Research in Iran: Quantitative Development and Qualitative Challenges Abbas Madandar Arani, Lida Kakia, and Mohammad Jafari Malek
Abstract Over the last two decades of the twentieth century, Iran, like many societies, witnessed the expansion of higher education. During this period, governmental, nongovernmental, and private universities were established, and the number of faculty members and students increased drastically. With the start of the new millennium, the government’s policy in higher education was changed from emphasis on training to research. As a result, in 2012 Iran gained the world’s 17th rank in science production and fixed its top position in the region of Middle East, above Turkey. Despite the overall progress, Iran’s higher education research is faced with challenges. The present paper has five sections. The first section is an overview of higher education in Iran. The second part explains the quantitative growth of higher education in the past three decades (1984–2014). The third part demonstrates the qualitative development of Iran’s higher education research with more detail. The fourth section indicates some of the most important challenges of higher education research in contemporary Iran. Article ends with a discussion and conclusions.
A.M. Arani (*) Lorestan University, Lorestan, Iran e-mail: [email protected] L. Kakia Payam Noor University, Tehran, Iran e-mail: [email protected] M.J. Malek Islamic Azad University (Zanjan Branch), Zanjan, Iran e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 J. Jung et al. (eds.), Researching Higher Education in Asia, Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4989-7_18
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Introduction In 1981 because of political problems and turmoil, Iran’s Islamic government closed all the universities for 3 years. Then, in 1984 the Cultural Revolution Committee reopens them while many former professors and students had been expelled. Fifty- three universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions were reformed in four groups: engineering and technical sciences, literature and humanities, art, and business and administrative sciences (MSRT 2009a). Governance of higher education in Iran is dispersed among state-run, private (Azad), and distance-learning universities. At state-run universities, students must pass a centralized exam and are accepted according to their exam rank and special privileges; it is free for all and very competitive. At private universities, students must pass a centralized exam and also pay tuition for full- or part-time programs (MSRT 2009b). Admission requires a secondary school diploma and a passing score on the national university entrance exam (Konkoor) (Rasian 2009). Iran’s higher education, based on financial resources and administration, are divided into two main categories: public and private (nonprofit) institutions. In public higher education, the two ministries responsible for postsecondary education are th
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