critical study of neoliberal transformations in public education in post-revolutionary Iran

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Corresponding author, Department of Development Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Development Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

After the Second World War, as globalization forces increased, the majority of nations attempted to reform their educational systems. With the decline of Keynesian policies at the beginning of the 1970s and the dominance of neoliberal policies at the beginning of the 1980s, however, education, like other social sectors, undergoes profound changes and transformations. In this study, we examined the neoliberal transformations of Iran’s public education following the revolution.
The subject of this study was investigated using documentary techniques and in-depth interviews. When documents alone were insufficient to answer the research questions, in-depth interviews with informants and subject matter experts were conducted.
The findings indicate that various authorities have authorized a number of authorizations and laws to support neoliberal policies. The government’s role in funding education has diminished over the past few decades, with the proportion of education expenses in the government’s overall expenditures decreasing to 10% in 2018 from 19% in 2018. In addition, the number of non-governmental schools has multiplied 64 times in the last three decades due to the implementation of structural adjustment policies and the passage of the non-profit schools law. Additionally, the presence of numerous schools (up to twenty categories of schools) indicates the implementation of school choice policy. The increasing prevalence of special schools — Shahed schools, board of trustees schools, top students schools, and intelligents schools — has also led to the emergence of a form of privatization that we refer to as “endogenous privatization.”
Results indicate that developments inspired by neoliberalism have led to the marketization and privatization of education over the past few decades, resulting in educational inequality, commodification of education, and a decline in education quality.

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Main Subjects

References

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