September 2006, No. 41

Endeavor

Deputy Chairman of Majlis Education and Research Commission has been quoted as saying that one of the most important concerns of Ministry of Science, Research and Technology as well as the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) is excessive admission of girl students to higher educational centers, which leads to an imbalance between proportion of boys and girls with higher education.

Hajar Tahriri Niksefat added that this imbalance will have many negative outcomes including inattention to social requirements for training specialized manpower.

She stated, “For example, there are a number of academic majors whose graduate should work in depressed areas of the world. However, female graduates have many problems when we want to send them to such areas. Therefore, it is necessary to solve this problem by training specialized manpower proportionate to the needs of the society.”

Deputy chairman of Education and Research Commission of the seventh Majlis further noted that priorities should be set for academic courses that are needed for depressed areas of the country.

“For some academic courses needed in depressed areas, priority should be given to male graduates while in other areas priority should be given to female graduates. Anyway, we must be careful and not let anybody’s right be ignored. Achieving this goal would need expert studies,” she said.

Tahriri Niksefat added that nobody every forecasted that someday girls would overtake boys in terms of university admission and this is a sign that boys have lost their incentives to go to the university.

“During past years, boys in our society have found out that there are no guarantees for finding good jobs once they graduate from a university. Therefore, most of them prefer to enter labor market earlier rather than going to the university,” she said.

It was perhaps about 1945 when the first woman was graduated from Tehran University. In those years, girls studying at universities were not usual and few girls were bold enough to study at higher educational centers. However, after many decades and social advances, girls have gradually entered social arenas and are continuing their studies in parallel to men. Now, according to the latest figures released by Ministry of Science, Research and Technology more than 60 percent of university students were girls last year. Studies have indicated that the figure will go beyond 70 percent in the coming years. This phenomenon has, thus far, elicited various reactions and analyses from experts. Many sociologists believe that excessive increase in women studying at higher educational centers will have social, economic, cultural, and political consequences. For example, from a political viewpoint, it is the sign of transition to a more democratic society.

Dr. Mohammad Jahanfar, university professor, believes that when girls account for 70 percent of university students, it will pave the way for realization of women’s freedom and equality against men and in several instances, it has worked to realize international ideas in the country. He added that this issue has been noted by international organizations, including the United Nations, and is a good ground for equality of rights between men and women. He says, “Inclination toward higher educations among girls is a good way for materialization of equality and freedom for women in the society.”

Women Are Not Second Sex: Women are still looked upon in some neighboring countries as well as Islamic states as a second sex. In such countries as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, this attitude is more pronounced. However, increased number of educated women in Iran shows that Iran is moving ahead of neighboring countries in this regard and women can no longer be considered a second sex, but they are entitled to choose to continue their studies. A major social result of education of girls is their freedom to choose jobs and earn money to be self-reliant. Jahanfar believes that unlike past years when only 9 percent, and at most, 12 percent of women were employed, now, due to increased number of university educated women, their employed population stands at 18-20 percent.

Increased Job Safety at Administrative Bodies: In view of massive bureaucracy in Iran’s administrative system, the question is whether presence of more educated women in private and state-run sectors will add to job safety in those places or not. Many sociologists believe that since women are more compliant to their duties than men and are more interested to solve people’s problems; their presence will bring job safety to administrative bodies. Jahanfar, while confirming this, believes that job safety will be both quantitative and qualitative. However, employment of women will be ensued with some positive cultural consequences too. It will change people’s attitude toward women and will make traditional and conservative families review their viewpoints about women.

On the other hand, most experts maintain that educated women are more successful in running their personal lives and are also more successful in raising children. Studies show that educated women are more efficient in preventing various types of social maladies. However, increased number of educated women will also have negative consequences. May experts believe that since in our traditional society, the men have been at the helm and are considered as breadwinner for their families, the 70-percent in crease in population of educated women will change behavioral patterns of men in the society and make them sensitive. They think that a woman who is working at an office will ignore her main duty, which is raising children. Jahanfar maintains that presence of more educated women is basically devoid of negative outcomes. He believes that if there are negative consequences they are insignificant. Some experts have noted that educated and employed women are insufficient with regard to certain jobs or their output is limited due to biological conditions of their bodies or because of pregnancy and breastfeeding periods. Therefore, jobs should be given to them on the basis of social psychology.

The next point is that increased inclination toward higher educations among women may cause problems with regard to their marital life and solutions for those problems should be thought in advance. For example, when women account for 70 percent of university studies, it means that men have lost opportunities to continue with higher educations and only 30 percent of students are men. As a result, presence of men in jobs requiring high skills will decrease while keeping a suitable gender proportion is a necessity for organization of jobs.

Fatemeh Rahbar, leader of Majlis’ women faction announced recently that due to increase in number of educated girls, a suitable culture should be built in the society according to which women should learn to live with men who are not as educated as themselves.

Jahanfar maintains that Iranian women are usually seeking an spouse who enjoys higher educational degrees, but many men have not continued their higher educations and, naturally, more educated and employed women will be waiting to find spouses with higher educations. In that case, the consequences of that kind of thinking will be delayed marriage as well as refraining from marriage, which will be ensued with limited number of pregnancies and lower population growth.

Jahanfar believes that under current conditions when women are inclined toward continuation of higher educations, the first thing to do is to remind educated women that they should not expect to marry a man with higher educations. Anyway, it seems that if educated and employed women do not think in a way that will make them evade marriage, we would not face sociological problems. This means that a married woman, through her educations and expertise, and a married man, through his biological and managerial capabilities, can pave the way for establishment of a suitable family. In this way, the society will not be facing problems with regard to population growth.