Humanities on Verge of Extinction in Iran

Figures show that out of 930,000 volunteers who had registered to take Iran’s university entrance examination on Friday, July 7, only 184,000 were interested in the humanities.

The fact is deeply worrying as it has the potential to spark off a crisis in the courses pertaining to these academic disciplines in the near future.

Farhikhtegan newspaper, an Iranian paper belonging to the Islamic Azad University, has discussed the risks of failing to pay due attention to humanities and the reasons for the Iranian students’ reluctance to study such academic disciplines at university, in an extensive report titled “Humanities on the Verge of Extinction” published on July 8.

The report says although the Iranian parents’ interest in their children becoming physicians is a salient and undeniable fact, the reduced number of the volunteers for taking humanity courses has heightened concerns more than ever.

The issue is critical enough to lead to a crisis in the field of thought in the country in the near future. The question is why nowadays, Iranian elites are more inclined towards studying courses in engineering and medicine.

Coming up with an answer to this question requires hours of discussion and study by experts. However, the roots can be found by looking deeper into Iran’s education system and the Iranian families’ general culture.

Haddadi, an Iranian researcher in this field, maintains that “an incorrect attitude towards providing [Iranian students with] educational guidance has infiltrated into our educational system, and this has led to the inefficiency of efforts to identify top [Iranian] talents and guide them in the right direction. Our instructors in humanity courses are usually not experts or interested in this field of study and the contents of the educational books are not attractive enough to the students.”