Iran and Persepolis

Thirty Years Later Iran
is Still Trying to Catch Up
Before the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 many students would frequently study abroad to further their education. Many of these students would go to graduate school in the United States; in fact in 1979 the 51,300 Iranian students in the United States were the single largest group of foreign students in the country (Labi 14). Now today less than 3,000 Iranian students study abroad in the United States according to 2004 Unesco figures (Labi 14). Even Marjane Satrapi, author of The Complete Persepolis, believes that students should study abroad in order to become more knowledgeable and open-minded (Satrapi 2). She believes this may be a big part of Iran's problems as most students do not ever get the chance to study abroad, which leaves them with a small sided view of the world. (Satrapi 2) It became increasingly difficult to leave Iran during to the time of Islamic rule. During this time Iran was completely against anything from the West and Iranian universities were not internationalized or competitive with other universities not in Iran. The Islamic rule has separated Iran from academic and cultural connections to the western world causing Iranian schools to fall behind academically.

From 1941 to 1979 the Pahlavi Dynasty was in control of Iran and while there were many problems with their reign of power one aspect they excelled with was education. The education system in Iran was on par with many European countries, but that was because the curriculum was in fact European (Hamdhaidari 21). Many foreigners had a huge impact on what the curriculum should be in Iran. This would seem like a good thing and for many reasons it was, but with the curriculum being European it left out a lot of the culture and history of Iran. Many people believe it was this educational system that pushed the younger generations to desire change in Iran. Universities soon became the center of political activity in Iran and were...