IRAN:Tertiary education has become a social necessity in Iran, where 80 per cent of high school graduates go on to higher education, writes Anna Fifield
SETAREH SPENT the weekend engrossed in last-minute cramming, trying to pack as much Persian Literature, Maths, English and Islamic Theology as possible into her tired head.
Along with 1.35 million other Iranian teenagers, she will today sit the most important test of her life - the kunkur university entrance exam, based on the French concours.
"I love cinema and I really want to get an academic education at one of the dramatic arts universities," Setareh (18) says in the cram school in central Tehran where she has been spending up to 50 hours a week studying for the crucial exam.
"I expect to do well, but there's no option other than going to university, so if I don't pass I will study for another year and sit the test again," she says, a pile of books in her lap.
Tertiary education has become a social necessity in Iran, where 80 per cent of high school graduates go on to higher education. If they are not among the 10 per cent accepted into prestigious institutions such as Tehran university, they attend one of the private tertiary colleges that have sprung up all over the country to cater to the booming demand.
Higher education took off with the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, when boys rushed to universities to escape from military service. That led to higher expectations, so girls responded by going to university too.
"This became a fashion," says Kouroosh Motamedi, head of the Kavosh kunkur institute in an apartment complex in western Tehran, a cram school of the kind more usually associated with education-obsessed Japan or South Korea. "Now, if you don't get into university, it is seen as some kind of mental and social retardedness, so people look down on you." For this reason, the test is now one of the most stressful events in family life.
"Many parents were not able to study, so they put all their hopes in their children, so if their child fails, they think it is a disaster and that their child will not find a good job or a good spouse," says Motamedi, who has tutored 28,000 students in the past 20 years.
At secondary school, students choose specialities - such as Arts, Humanities, Maths or Natural Sciences - then sit a test with questions about core subjects, as well as about their designated subject. Students are ranked according to their score, and universities admit pupils based on their rank.
In one of his claims to fame, President Ahmadinejad ranked 132 out of 400,000 participants when he took the exam in 1976.
But many education experts say that, in addition to creating a huge amount of stress, it has put more emphasis on being a good test-sitter than being a well-rounded student.
"Iranians go to high school for six years, but the last three years is all about preparing to get into university," says Mohammad-Amin Ghaneirad, a sociologist at the National Research Institute for Science Policy. "Students do not learn knowledge, they learn how to do multiple choice."
Now, some masters and doctorate degrees even include multiple-choice components.
"There is a kind of mass production in higher education, and it's having consequences," Ghaneirad says.
"For example, some Mathematics students are very successful in world Olympiads, but they don't know much about history or culture, and they can't analyse very simple social issues."
The authorities are talking about replacing the exam with a university admission system based on three years' worth of secondary-school grades, which would give colleges more say over who they accept.
Some educational experts fear, however, that this could lead to corruption or discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities.
While the abolition of kunkur would come as a relief for students, it would be a disappointment for tutors such as Mr Motamedi.
Each 90-minute tutorial at his Kavosh institute costs $80 (€51) but the fee for attending full-time for a year - as students such as Setareh do for their final year - is $5,000.
That's a significant amount of money in a country where the average annual income is $11,000.
"This is one of the most profitable sectors in Iran's economy," says Motamedi. "It's second only to oil."
- (Financial Times service)