How does a country that has the highest ratio of female to male undergrads in the world, and where 65% of college students are female, reward women for excelling in the classroom?
By banning them from studying.
The Iranian government has issued new laws barring female students from more than 70 university degree courses, meaning they’ll be unable to study in a wide range of areas including engineering, accounting, education, counselling and chemistry.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, female students have become prominent in traditionally male-dominated courses. But the gender tip is at odds with the country’s theocratic regime. Declining birth and marriage rates have led senior clerics to become concerned with the social side effects of the rising education standards among women, according to reports.
The university ban has prompted demands for a UN investigation by Iran’s most celebrated human rights campaigner Shirin Ebadi.
Other critics have claimed that the ban is aimed at defeating women’s rights, but despite the detractors, the Iranian Minister for Science and Higher Education Kamran Daneshjoo claims the move is necessary to restore “gender balance” in the universities.
How progressive of him.