Approximately 30% of high school girls in Iran do not attend school
A recent report sheds light on high school girls’ educational challenges in Iran. According to Shahla Kazemipour, a demographer, approximately 30% of high school girls do not attend school, raising concerns about equal access to education. (The state-run ISNA news agency, May 10, 2024)
According to Kazemipour, the enrollment rate of girls going to junior high school (ages 12-15) drops to approximately 82%. This rate falls to 70% for girls between (15-18) going to senior high school.
Contributing factors
Education is neither free nor mandatory in Iran. Due to rampant poverty, some families cannot afford to send their children to school, while many children join the army of millions of child laborers to help their families survive.
Some regions lack sufficient educational infrastructure, making it difficult for girls to access schools.
More importantly, early marriage remains a challenge for girls as the clerical regime’s laws sanction the marriage of girls at age 13.
Each year, around 200,000 girls aged 15 to 19 get married, often leading to discontinuation of their education.
One million children out of school
The National Statistics Center of Iran published its statistics on the number of students who are either deprived of education or have dropped out of school on January 2, 2024.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, 929,798 students in three educational stages have been deprived of education.
The figure shows more than 18,500 increase compared to the academic year 2021-2022 when the total number of students deprived of education was 911,272.
At the elementary level, 175,114 students did not go to school, including 96,202 boys and 78,912 girls.
At the junior high school level, 98,271 boys and 99,723 girls did not go to school, which makes a total of 197,690. The number of students who did not make it to senior high school level is 556,994, including 295,101 boys and 261,893 girls.
On September 14, 2023, a state-run website, Rouydad24.ir, published a report in which it estimated that the number of students deprived of education is around 7.4 million.
Despite the lack of transparency and accuracy in government statistics, they nevertheless shed light on the dire circumstances faced by children, especially young Iranian girls.
