The head of the Student Affairs Organization of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the design of an integrated system for recruiting international students in Iranian universities and stated: This system is being prepared and will be put into operation in the near future. According to him, now more than 100 thousand foreign students are studying in Iranian universities.

Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - Tehran: Hashim Dadashpour, the deputy of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran and the head of the student affairs organization of the ministry, at the conference of the international deputies of the universities and institutions of higher education, research and technology of this country, which was held on Tuesday, March 1, It was held at Payam Noor University in Tehran, he said: The issue of attracting international students in Iran is one of the important issues pursued by the Student Affairs Organization and the International Department of the Ministry of Science.
He added: Currently, 6 million and 300 thousand students are being recruited in the world, and from the 50s to the 2000s, certain countries were recruiting these students. There was no change in this process until the three countries China, Russia and Turkey entered this process.
Dadashpour clarified: Countries that accept immigrants are also countries with opportunities for immigrants. Currently, one million of the student population of China and 500,000 of the student population of India are studying in other countries, but in Iran, we were unaware of the capacity to attract students.
The Deputy Minister of Science of Iran continued to express hope and said: Good things are happening now. We have more than 100,000 foreign students, and this population was 15,000 to 16,000 in the last 10 years. Iran is currently receiving attention in the field of student recruitment due to its scientific productions.
He regretted that we have not been very successful in attracting students. 90,000 of our foreign students are students from Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile, out of 261,000 foreign students in Turkey, 37,000 of them are from Syria. We should have been more successful than this country in attracting these students. It is the same with African countries, Turkey has attracted 60 thousand students from African countries only, while we have only attracted 284 students from African countries.
According to him: Iran's public universities have attracted 26% of foreign students, while they have wide capacities. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad alone has been more successful in attracting international students than all public universities in Tehran. Sharif University of Technology has 61 international students and this shows that we are not yet international in many cases.
The Deputy Minister of Science of Iran added: We must eliminate the broad obstacles to the expansion of the international student population and have a change in the attitude towards this issue. The subject of attracting international students needs a combined model. We should not look at attracting international students from an income point of view.
He spoke about removing the existing obstacles in the direction of attracting international students and stated: Since last year, measures have been taken to remove the existing obstacles for attracting international students. One case where we tried to discuss the residence during the study period in the country. In all countries, when a foreign student enters that country for one year, he can get an academic residence for another three years and leave repeatedly, which is supposed to be facilitated in Iran as well. Also, the entire consular process of these students is supposed to be electronic and we have moved in this direction.
The head of Iran's student affairs organization pointed to the evolution in the field of academic advisors and said: Academic advisors should be effective in attracting students and expanding relationships. Also, this year we had licenses for student recruitment institutions. 45 institutions have received their licenses and 20 institutions will receive their licenses. 70% of foreign students around the world are recruited by these institutions.
The head of the Student Affairs Organization of the Ministry of Science of Iran announced the design of a one-size-fits-all system for attracting foreign students, and said that this system is being prepared and will be used in the near future.
He also announced the issuance of bilingual education certificates and the holding of a festival of exemplary students for international students.