Identification of 136,000 children out of school in Iran
An official from Iran's Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare says that 136,000 children who are out of school have been identified nationwide. The share of children out of school in urban areas is higher than that of children in rural areas.
The statistics of children who are out of school were announced at a scientific meeting on “Identifying Children Who Are Out of School in Iran.” The meeting was held on Tuesday (June 13) at the “Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare” building in Tehran. In addition to officials from the Ministry of Labor and Cooperatives, a group of child rights activists also participated in the meeting.
According to the Labor News Agency (ILNA), at the beginning of the meeting, Ahmad Midari, Deputy Minister of Social Welfare at the Ministry of Labor, said that the creation of urban fringes of 10 to 12 million people in the country and the population changes from rural to urban have created complications in the country and it is necessary for organizations to take special measures in addition to their work.
The Ministry of Labor official announced the number of children who are out of school at 136,000. According to him, the Ministry of Education has provided the national codes of these children to the Ministry of Labor.
Midari added that a council titled “Clogging the Roots of Illiteracy” was launched in the Hassan Rouhani government to provide a clear picture of why children were not attending school. According to him, “In the summer of 2016, we came to the conclusion of how to identify children. Finally, it was determined that 136,000 children were out of school.”
The Deputy Minister of Social Welfare of the Ministry of Labor then explained the problems of accessing these children and said that we obtained their contact numbers through the subsidy system so that we could contact them through welfare, but the contact numbers provided by the Subsidy Targeting Organization were not correct, and therefore Dr. Rabiei contacted the Minister of Communications to provide us with the numbers of these people.
He continued: "The operators initially resisted providing the numbers and declared it illegal to provide them, but with the assistance of Dr. Firouzabadi (Acting Minister of Labor), this was implemented."
Ahmad Midari continued to emphasize: "The information of 92,393 children and their guardians has been completed, and it has been determined that 55,000 of these children are under the protection of the Relief and Welfare Committee's support institutions, so that about 38,000 children are under the protection of the Welfare Committee, 25,000 are under the protection of the Relief Committee, and 8,000 are under the protection of both institutions."
Among the children who are out of school, 49 percent are boys and 51 percent are girls, and most are between the ages of 10 and 12. According to Midari, the proportion of out-of-school children is higher in urban areas than in rural areas.
Regarding the reasons for children not attending school, the Deputy Minister of Labor said: "With the help of the Ra'ad Al-Ghadir Charity Organization, which is equipped with a centralized system for making phone calls and recording conversations, contact was initiated with these children, and the result of these calls was that 30 percent of these children were not attending school due to poverty, 27 percent due to disability, 14 percent due to living abroad, and 6 percent due to being away from school."
According to Ahmad Midari, the largest number of children who are out of school are from the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Khuzestan, Tehran, and Kerman. He also announced that it has been decided that these children will be introduced to education in the new year for registration.
Source: DW
