While going to school every day may seem routine for many children, it can be an unattainable dream for displaced children.
Education, a right for every child
“I felt so ashamed before,” shares Somayeh*. “I thought people would call me illiterate and make fun of me because I didn’t go to school.”
Somayeh, 15, is from Afghanistan. She arrived in Iran three years ago with her family and was not able to enrol in public school. Somayeh now lives in Qom City, in the centre of Iran, and is enrolled in an accelerated education programme with 200 other children. The programme is run by Literacy Movement Organization and is supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). After three months of the course, Somayeh's reading skills have come on leaps and bounds – she can now happily read children’s books to her siblings.
Home to more than 4.5 million Afghan refugees, a third of whom are children, Iran hosts the highest number of refugees in the world. While all children, including Afghan refugees, are allowed to join the Iranian public education system in theory, they face a number of challenges in practice. These include learning gaps, financial constraints, bureaucratic red tape and cultural barriers.
More than 600,000 Afghan children enrolled in Iranian public schools for the 2023–2024 academic year. This was a decrease from the previous year, due to more restrictive enrolment requirements and higher tuition fees. Still, despite the drop in student numbers, classrooms are overcrowded, and teachers have to work double shifts every day to make sure no child is left behind. In schools supported by NRC, each class accommodates 45 or more children.
For children unable to enrol in the public education system, courses like the accelerated education programme represent the only option for them to continue their education. Teachers like Ms Mohammadi* work tirelessly to help out-of-school children catch up and reintegrate into the formal education system.
“I do my best to support all students,” she says. “For me, there is no difference between Afghan and Iranian students: all of them want to learn and many wish to go to university.”
“I felt so ashamed before,” shares Somayeh*. “I thought people would call me illiterate and make fun of me because I didn’t go to school.”
Somayeh, 15, is from Afghanistan. She arrived in Iran three years ago with her family and was not able to enrol in public school. Somayeh now lives in Qom City, in the centre of Iran, and is enrolled in an accelerated education programme with 200 other children. The programme is run by Literacy Movement Organization and is supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). After three months of the course, Somayeh's reading skills have come on leaps and bounds – she can now happily read children’s books to her siblings.
Home to more than 4.5 million Afghan refugees, a third of whom are children, Iran hosts the highest number of refugees in the world. While all children, including Afghan refugees, are allowed to join the Iranian public education system in theory, they face a number of challenges in practice. These include learning gaps, financial constraints, bureaucratic red tape and cultural barriers.
More than 600,000 Afghan children enrolled in Iranian public schools for the 2023–2024 academic year. This was a decrease from the previous year, due to more restrictive enrolment requirements and higher tuition fees. Still, despite the drop in student numbers, classrooms are overcrowded, and teachers have to work double shifts every day to make sure no child is left behind. In schools supported by NRC, each class accommodates 45 or more children.
For children unable to enrol in the public education system, courses like the accelerated education programme represent the only option for them to continue their education. Teachers like Ms Mohammadi* work tirelessly to help out-of-school children catch up and reintegrate into the formal education system.
“I do my best to support all students,” she says. “For me, there is no difference between Afghan and Iranian students: all of them want to learn and many wish to go to university.”
A fresh start in a new home
The journey of each Afghan refugee is different, but all of them have overcome multiple challenges to access services such as education in their new home. To reach Iran, many have taken extremely dangerous routes, often without valid entrance documentation. And in the absence of this documentation, they are unable to enrol in school upon arrival.
It took Sadegh’s* family a long time to reach Iran. In fact, he and his mother had to hide in the mountains for a month before they joined up with a group of other Afghans and entered Iran through an unofficial border crossing. Tragically, Sadegh’s father was killed back in Afghanistan.
Following their arrival in 2021, Sadegh and his mother spent two years in an asylum centre, not knowing whether they would be sent back to Afghanistan. There were no classes or teachers available in the centre. However, Sadegh’s mother was determined to secure an education for her son, and so insisted on sourcing an instructor for him and his friends – she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Learning facilities in the centre were very limited, so the instructor couldn’t provide the children with a comprehensive curriculum, but did help them revise what they had already learned in Afghanistan.
In 2023, Sadegh and his mother were finally allowed to relocate to more permanent accommodation and start their life officially in Iran. At this time, NRC provided Sadegh with cash assistance so that he could enrol in public school and buy stationery. Sadegh’s mother can now happily wave her son off to school every day.
Thanks to generous support from the European Union and Det Norske Veritas (DNV), and in partnership with Education Above All Foundation’s Educate A Child (EAC) programme, we are supporting Afghan refugees in Iran to overcome barriers and exercise their right to education.
NRC in Iran
Since 2012, NRC in Iran has been assisting displaced Afghans as well as Iranian host communities. We work to protect and improve access to basic humanitarian services across 11 provinces: Alborz, Tehran, Yazd, South Khorasan, Hormozgan, Kerman, Razavi Khorasan, Qom, Markazi, Semnan, and Sistan and Baluchestan.
Since mid-2021, we have significantly scaled up our work in Iran in response to the recent developments in Afghanistan, all while maintaining existing programmes.
Read more about our work in Iran.
About NRC’s partnership with EAC
NRC partners with the EAC programme to rehabilitate classrooms and toilets in schools and provide cash assistance, with the aim of supporting access to education for all children. Through these interventions, we aim to minimise the risk of children abandoning their studies and encourage those who have been forced to drop out of the educational system to return to school.
*Names have been changed to respect the individuals’ desire for anonymity.
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