Higher Education in Iran from 1985 to 2015; Social Justice and Social Responsibility

The higher education in Iran has undergone many changes during the last three decades. over the academic year 1985-86, the number of Iranian students was 167,457 and in 1995-1996, the number of students was 1,046,254. Meanwhile, in 2005-2006, this amount reached to the number of 2,389,860 and in 2015-2016, the number of Students have been 4,348,383. In a nutshell, over the course of three decades, the number of students has grown 26 times.

Like in many countries of the world, quantitative growth in Higher education in Iran has occurred mainly in the private sector up to the degree that almost 15% of the higher education is at the state sector and 85% is related to the private sector..

Access to higher education, social and economical mobility, increased social awareness and the achievement of suitable job, especially in the first decade, have been one of the most important benefits of the high growth and development of higher education in Iran. However, this growth has also been a huge challenge including graduates’s Employment which has been the most important problem of the last decade.

Along with the quantitative growth of higher education in Iran, higher education institutions have brought many of their facilities to small towns. Although these movements have been the cause of the growth of small towns to some extent and also the university was both symbolically and socio-economically important for those towns, the current situation have brought some problems amongst the decline in the demand for higher education and the need for integration of higher education institutions.

This article aims to pay more attention to the social responsibility of the universities as one of the ways out of the challenges of higher education in Iran. the purpose of this paper is to extend this concern and its dimensions.