IRAN: Government may separate sexes at universities

03 July 2011

When Iranian students return to university in September, men and women may find themselves in separate classes, laboratories, canteens, buses and even administration offices, writes Maryam Sinaiee for The National.

Iran's Higher Education Minister, Kamran Daneshjoo, has ordered a study to gauge the feasibility of enforcing gender segregation when the academic year starts, the khabaronline news website reported last week.

Daneshjoo is a fervent advocate of gender segregation in universities and has repeatedly said the problem with Iranian universities is that they "copy western models in both form and content". In February, Daneshjoo proposed transforming some universities to single-gender ones. Gender segregation was enforced in all Iranian schools following the Islamic revolution of 1979. But in universities, male and female students attend class together but sit in separate rows of chairs.
Full report on The National site

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