In the shadow of poverty and deprivation, 3 million students are missing out on education in the country

The Minister of Education said that 3 million students were absent from school in the 1399-1400 academic year. According to him, the main reasons for students' absence from school were their living in deprived areas without internet access and lack of access to educational tools. In addition, the Director General of Education of Khorasan Razavi stated that this province, with a share of 40,000 of this amount, has the highest rate of student dropouts in the country.

According to the HRANA news agency, citing Hamshahri, in the 1400-1399 academic year, nearly 3 million students in the country were excluded from education.

According to the report, the Minister of Education, while confirming the aforementioned statistics, stated that a significant share of students who dropped out of school during the 1399-1400 academic year are children or adolescents who either do not have access to smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets or live in areas where there is no internet.

Ghasem Ali Khodabandeh, Director General of Education of Khorasan Razavi, while stating that Khorasan Razavi has the highest dropout rate among the provinces of the country, noted: 40,000 students in this province dropped out of school in the 1399-1400 academic year, many of whom live in deprived areas of Khorasan. In addition, the high cost of smart devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and internet costs were other reasons for these students dropping out; while an Iranian smartphone costs at least 6 million tomans in the Tehran market.

In addition, Hassan Ali Asghari, Director General of Education of Qazvin Province, said in this regard: There are 2,000 students who have not completed their education in this province, of which 1,227 are in secondary school and 773 are in elementary school.

Ahmad Eskandari-Nasab, Director General of Education of Kerman Province, also stated that the number of students who failed to complete their education in the first grade of secondary school was 4,510 students, adding: "3,677 out of 65,000 seven-year-old children did not go to school to register for the first grade of primary school."

Mahdieh Yar Ali, an educational expert in Babiyan, said that if it were not for the scattered help of benefactors and concerned individuals, the number of students dropping out of school would have doubled to the current figure. She added: "Education had a duty to provide smart tools for teaching to all teachers and students, but not only did it not do this, but it also caused them to pay exorbitant costs to purchase mobile phones or tablets out of their own pockets in this difficult economic situation."

The 1399-1400 academic year has ended while the outlook for the next academic year remains unclear for teachers, students, and their parents.

Source: HRANA