Early Childhood Education in Iran: Past Efforts, Current Initiatives, Future Plans

Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Iran, in a formal format, dates back to the early years of the twentieth century when the first kindergartens were established in Tabriz and Tehran in 1910. It then developed in other big... [ view full abstract ]

Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Iran, in a formal format, dates back to the early years of the twentieth century when the first kindergartens were established in Tabriz and Tehran in 1910. It then developed in other big cities in the country and now even in villages; there are centres where children attend for part of the day. Currently there are about 7million children in the country aged 0-6, of which around 50% attend a type of centre such as kindergarten (for ages 1-4), pre-schools (for ages 5 and 6) and play houses (hourly and full time centres run by the community centres for children aged 2-6). Preschool participation increases from 20% when they are toddlers to 80% when they get to ages 5 and 6.

Iran has made a big jump in children’s health development and care in the past 50 years in terms of decreasing baby’s mortality, vaccination and eradication of children main diseases.

There have been a few plans for mid and long term periods to increase children’s centre participation for ages 3 to 6, by providing government subsidies for those who cannot afford it (i.e. free pre-school education) particularly for children coming from low SES, immigrants, or bilinguals. Furthermore, there have developed some better parenting programs for children who do not attend centres or spend many hours in the home. In the talk, some of these plans will be elaborated. Finally challenges will be discussed such as the economy of ECE i.e. the financial resources needed for ECE considering government tightening budget, the national curriculum for ECE, uniformity versus uniqueness of ECE, universality versus diversity of children’s development in different areas of the country.