Privatization of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran: One step forward, one step back

During the last three decades in Iran, the government has had different policies on the privatization of education. After victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the new government closed all private schools for nearly a decade. Establishing and reopening Non-Governmental Schools (NGS) was the first action toward the privatization of education after the end of the war with Iraq in 1988. In recent years, there has been an increasing trend among owners of NGS toward closing their schools. This paper investigates factors influencing the closure of NGS through in-depth interviews with three groups: owners of active NGS, officers in the NGS Office, and owners of non-active NGS. The paper starts with an introduction, which is followed by the methodology of the research. The third section presents the findings of interviews. More specifically, this paper analyzes Iran's different strategies concerning the privatization of education based on Klein's Model. The paper ends with the conclusions.