By Fariba Sahraei
Female university students in Iran have outnumbered men for the past decade
With
the start of the new Iranian academic year, a raft of restrictions on
courses open to female students has been introduced, raising questions
about the rights of women to education in Iran - and the long-term
impact such exclusions might have.
More than 30 universities have introduced new rules banning female students from almost 80 different degree courses.
These include a bewildering variety of subjects from
engineering, nuclear physics and computer science, to English
literature, archaeology and business.
No official reason has been given for the move, but
campaigners, including Nobel Prize winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi, allege
it is part of a deliberate policy by the authorities to exclude women
from education.
"The Iranian government is using various initiatives… to
restrict women's access to education, to stop them being active in
society, and to return them to the home," she told the BBC.
Higher Education Minister Kamran Daneshjoo has sought to play
down the situation, stressing Iran's strong track record in getting
young people into higher education and saying that despite the changes,
90% of university courses are still open to both men and women.
Men outnumbered
Iran was one of the first countries in the Middle East to
allow women to study at university and since the Islamic Revolution in
1979 it has made big efforts to encourage more girls to enroll in higher
education.
The gap between the numbers of male and female students has
gradually narrowed. In 2001 women outnumbered men for the first time and
they now make up more than 60% of the overall student body.
University entrance exams are highly competitive in Iran, with the number of female applicants increasing each year
Year-on-year more Iranian women than men are applying for
university places, motivated some say by the chance to live a more
independent life, to have a career and to escape the pressure from
parents to stay at home and to get married.
Women are well-represented across a wide range of professions and there are many female engineers, scientists and doctors.
But many in Iran fear that the new restrictions could now undermine this achievement.
"I wanted to study architecture and civil engineering," says
Leila, a young woman from the south of Iran. "But access for girls has
been cut by fifty per cent, and there's a chance I won't get into
university at all this year."
"Traditional politicians now see educated and powerful women as a threat”
Saeed Moidfar
Retired professor from Tehran
In the early days after the
Islamic revolution, universities were one of the few places where young
Iranian men and women could mix relatively freely.
Over the years this gradually changed, with universities
introducing stricter measures like separate entrances, lecture halls and
even canteens for men and women.
Since the unrest after the 2009 presidential election this
process has accelerated as conservative politicians have tightened their
grip on the country.
Women played a key role in those protests - from the
traditionally veiled but surprisingly outspoken wives of the two main
opposition candidates, to the glamorous green-scarved demonstrators out
on the streets of Tehran and other cities.
Some say it was the prominient role of women in 2009's protests that has unnerved Iran's conservative leaders
Some Iranians say it was the sight of so many young Iranian
women at the forefront of the protests in 2009 that unnerved the
country's conservative leaders and prompted them into action.
"The women's movement has been challenging Iran's
male-dominated establishment for several years," says Saeed Moidfar, a
retired sociology professor from Tehran.
"Traditional politicians now see educated and powerful women as a threat."
'Islamisation'
In a speech after the 2009 protests, the country's Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for the "Islamisation" of
universities and criticized subjects like sociology, which he said were
too western-influenced and had no place in the Iranian Islamic
curriculum.
Since then, there have been many changes at universities,
with courses cut and long-serving academic staff replaced with
conservative loyalists.
"From age 16 I knew I wanted to be a
mechanical engineer, I really worked hard for it ... But although I got
high marks in the entrance exam, I've ended up with a place to study art
and design instead”
Noushin
A student from Esfahan
Many see the new restrictions on female students as a continuation of this process.
In August 2012 Ayatollah Khamenei made another
widely-discussed speech calling for Iranians to return to traditional
values and to have more children.
It was an affront to many in a country which pioneered family
planning and has won praise from around the world for its emphasis on
the importance of providing families with access to contraception.
"People are more educated now and they are more concerned
about the size of their families," says Saeed Moidfar. "I doubt that the
government plans will change anything."
However, since the speech there have been reports of cutbacks
in family planning programs, and in sex education classes at
universities.
It is not yet clear exactly how many women students have been
affected by the new rules on university entrance. But as the new
academic year begins, at least some have had to completely rethink their
career plans.
"From the age of 16 I knew I wanted to be a mechanical
engineer, and I really worked hard for it," says Noushin from Esfahan.
"But although I got high marks in the National University entrance exam,
I've ended up with a place to study art and design instead."
Over the coming months campaigners will be watching closely
to track the effects of the policy and to try to gauge the longer-term
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