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Procedia
ProcediaSocial
Socialand
andBehavioral
BehavioralSciences
Sciences55(2010)
(2010)1071–1075
1071–497

WCPCG-2010

Technical and vocational education and the structure of education

system in Iran
Aliakbar Behbahania * F

a
Islamic Azad University – Shahrerey Branch

Received January 11, 2010; revised January 29, 2010; accepted March 1, 2010

Abstract

The main goal of this research is to study the official technical and vocational curriculum and its relationship with employment
planning of graduates of these fields. In this descriptive study, the education system, technical and vocational education, the
employment planning of this field and the ties between the two planning were studied. Results have shown that no consideration
is made for planning in the official technical and education in secondary schools ,in Iran to provide manpower needed in the
society and in general, and no planning has been made for the employment of graduates of technical and vocational education. In
this reason, adopting a policy and rational model to fit special conditions of our country seemed a necessity and this research
tried to contribute to this problem.
© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

Keywords: Technical, vocational, education, structure, system.

1. Introduction

Education and occupation are correlated in many ways and this connection is not a pre-determined one. Both
systems complete each other and have relationship in an active way. The quality and quantity growth of coordinated
and suitable relationship of the two is some type of progress that manifests their efficiency in the entire social
system. In order to determine the structure of occupation demands to manpower, evaluation of the past and present
condition, and information on the growth procedures in different sectors of the country, production methods and
their range of application is a necessity. All those relationship require a precise knowledge on the educational
structure of human forces to occupy social jobs. The demands structure of people in a society and the educational
structure of human forces for work market could be useful in most optimum way if the planning made for the two
are coordinated, related and balanced. In future years, the impacts of scientific and technology improvement in
social-economic growth will be a definite factor and this reveals essential quality changes in the whole process of
production and service provision in the societies. Obviously, the growth resources of a society undergo increasing
changes and this does not depend on expansion of quantitative sources but rather to a constant increase in the
efficiency of planning and individuals.

* Ali Akbar Behbahani. Tel.: +098-021-55229313; fax: +098-021-66555202.

E-mail address: [email protected].

1877-0428 © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.07.237
1072 Aliakbar Behbahani / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 1071–1075

In studying the educational planning in Iran from the beginning of First Development Plan to the end of Fourth
Development Plan, Nissary says:
By studying the composition of individuals who work in education institutes or have graduates every year on one
hand and evaluating the demands of general issues in the economic, social and industrial development plan, one
could perceive that the two programs did not take the same path in their objective movements and there will be
shortages in specialized and technical man power for the country in future, caused by disregarding this basic point.
In the publication on changes on human forces and occupation during the Third, Fourth ad Fifth Development
Plans, it has been written that: Despite expansion of demands in recent years, particularly shortage of engineers,
physicians, technicians, mechanic technicians and skilled work force on one hand and the large demands for those
jobs in future years due to economic growth, the secondary education has no coordination with those demands and
instead of meeting the demands of the country, it supplies not useful and parasites for society.
In the post revolution years, despite great emphasizes made on technical and vocational education, one of the
experts assessed the function of technical and vocational education during 1983 to 1987 as:
organization and to this date, there has been no information of what is being done by this ministry.

2. Methodology

This Research has employed descriptive comparative method. In general, in descriptive Research, the
specifications of a subject or even are recorded through an objective, actual and regular description. This Research
has been conducted by using problem solving particularly by adopting Edmund King’s method, along with historical
method and considering other viewpoints as well. In the meantime, to collect data and information on educational
system, the comparative study of UNESCO has given a special classification, as it still enjoys the agreement of
permanent members First different systems are studied in order to release the mentality from a particular zone,
region or country and then we become familiar with an unusual plan in our country. Then we find correlation
between those specifications and the characteristics of social structure (with no regards to each single societies from
which we have gathered information) by using information and statistics processing system. Some of the goals and
objectives of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran in connection with technical and vocational education are:
- Constant scientific growth in agriculture, military and such fields
- Training obliged and committed people for overall advancement of the country
- Expanding knowledge among people on the importance and value of education and its goals.

The education system of Iran

The education system of Iran is taken from old education system of France and is of centralized type.
Policymaking and educational decisions are controlled by central government; therefore, there remains no chance to
innovate or take fresh actions or any specific measures for provinces and local groups to try their ideas. The
existence of this centralized system causes long delays and excessive bureaucracy in administrative policies. In
1951, first movements were made to transfer parts of the power and important authorities to the provincial and city
departments and the responsibilities such as employment, moving teaches and staff inside provinces, allocation of
financial resources of each province to certain expenses and some expenditure was assigned to the authorities of the
provinces. Although ministry of education has increased the power and responsibilities of affiliated departments in
the province centers and towns, decision-making is centralized and is the power of central government.

Funds of Education System

The education expenses of the country are merely funded from general budget and the collection of budget
figures in six years (1982-1987) shows that the share of public education (2,448,819 x 10) Rials is 14 percent of
total budget (17,167,819 x 10) and this figure is similar to the percent of education budget in many countries.
 Aliakbar Behbahani / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 1071–1075 1073

The technical and vocational secondary schools in Iran

During the recent decades, secondary school program was developed very fast and without providing reasonable
grounds such as training efficient teachers, providing educational equipment and tools and the result of such
development is that at present, the graduates of high schools wander behind university entrance doors without
having sufficient knowledge, arts or a craft, seeking to be admitted in the universities. In general, the duties of
ministry of education are working towards generalizing technical and vocational education in framework of state
economic and social development by absorbing the cooperation of concerned institutes. To realize this general duty,
some of the duties of technical and vocational education relevant to this research as follows:
“Study and research on the type and amount of country’s need to technical and vocational education and issues
related to the ministry of education in this regards.”

Variety of institutes, fields and syllabus

Technical and vocational education in secondary school education is generally provided by ministry of education.
In the meantime, ministry of agriculture, ministry of health and medical education, post, telegraph and telephone,
railways and oil ministry perform some activities as well. The defense industries organization has some technical
schools under supervision of ministry of education. Table 5 shows the number of trainees and graduates of this part
during 1983 to 1989.

Technical education

Technical education is executed in technical high schools that undertake industry education plan in secondary
school. In provinces, this education is provided under supervision of deputy of technical and vocational education of
province. The article of association of these technical high schools was approved for a three-year period on June 1,
1958 and for a four-year plan on September 15, 1963. According to the article of association, the goal of industrial
technical schools is to train technician for working in various industries. Technical education is divided into four
fields: general mechanics, marine industries, wood industries and electricity and each of them accept trainees in
different fields. The general mechanics field consists of design and die building, machine tools, metal industries,
thermal installations, refrigeration and cooling, metallurgy, metalworking and mining machinery.
Marine industries field consists of six majors and at present (1988), two fields, electronics and marine
communication and motors mechanics are working. Installation, ventilation, body repairs, electronic, marine, fishery
and trading marine fields still do not admit trainees.
Wood industries work in modelling, carpentry and internal decorations.
Electricity field consists of telecommunication, electronics and Electrotechniques.
Results:
The result of underestimating curriculum planning is: There is no compatibility between the contents of the
course and the needs of society, the learning power of students, the relationship between the courses which were
taught and those which should be taught later and no logical and controllable relationship in schedules for teaching
hours. There is no coordination between workshop plans and lab schedules on one hand and theoretical courses in
contents and planning. In the first economic, social and cultural development plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in
the chapter related to technical and vocational education planning, it has been stated that the curriculum planning in
technical and vocational education suffers from inefficiencies and disabilities.

3. Discussion

The above-mentioned report shows that not many activities have been rendered in technical and vocational
education. Regarding clause 1, there has been only a change in place and nothing is added, nor, there has been any
scientific and research fields for its alteration. Fro clause 2, this activity was almost stopped in 1992 due to lack of
any success or inefficiency. For clause 3, the center of technical information and production of educational materials
has been held but no comprehensive report ahs been received on in what extent it has performed its duties or
attained the goals. In clause 4, the establishment of high council for coordination of technical and vocational
1074 Aliakbar Behbahani / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010) 1071–1075

education is noted but according to the views expressed in the bill of Act for the first economic, social and cultural
development plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the high council for coordination of technical and vocational
education the country, as the highest authority to enforce coordination and set polices of education in the recent
years, has become a passive institute before existing technical and educational fields for many reasons. In the
economic report of technical and vocational education in 1988, the inactive role of high council is noted. In clause 6,
the significant point is that in 1979, due to low quality of two shifted technical high schools and shortage of trainees
and excessive use of teachers and subsequently, lowering the qualities, the technical high schools became one
shifted and the effects were shown in rapid decrease in number of technical students and graduates in next years. In
summing up the policy makings and activities in technical and vocational education, as reflected in the reports of
budget and planning organization during 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1990, the general results have been as follows:
Most activities which have been performed in executing policies and to realize the goals of technical and
vocational education are evaluated as to be poor or average and this is mainly for the reason that educational
activities in this section in large number of executive systems are scattered without conformity with each other or
attention to actual demand of the society and regardless to the polices and direction of plans. Each executive
organization makes arrangements which were mostly show off or case and was a temporary solution. In the
meantime, in the executive system of the country, no authority has been named as responsible for following up and
supervising the plans and the coordinating and policy making mechanisms are inactive.
Therefore, with more than a quarter of century from planning process, the education system in technical and
vocational education has no comprehensive plan that could fit manpower planning and so far, it has perused no
proper and specific goal. Therefore, the efforts were mostly in quantity development rather than quality. With a
review to education systems of countries studied in this research, those countries that had a powerful and careful
technical and vocational system have higher welfare status and it shows that the situation of technical and vocational
education in our country is shaky and low quality. This is not becoming to a country with a brilliant technical and
vocational records.

Table 1 :The education expenses and its proportion to GPN and the per capita of education in five selected countries
U

Education Annual education

Percentage of
Country Year expenditure (in Currency expenditure per
income
millions) capita
I.R. Iran 1986 559,567 Rials 15.46 11351
East Germany 1986 129 Deutschemarks 5.23 818
West Germany 1986 129 GDR Marks 5.23 8875
Japan 1985 1614 Yen 17.9 13250
Soviet Union 1985 46631 USSR Rubles 10.2 170
India 1985 87257 Rupee 9.4 670

Table 2 : Figures of budgets with respect to population growth in six countries

Country Population growth in 1985 DDR

I.R. Iran 3.9 88
East Germany 0.1 --
West Germany 0.2 90.2
Japan 0.6 54.5
Soviet Union 1 83.2
India 2 97.5

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