Higher education expansion policy in Iran and its impact on educational justice

Authors
Somayeh Fereidouni 1
shadi Rouhani 2
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Higher Education Management Studies, Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education, Tehran, Iran.
2 Lead Subject Matter Expert, Department of Higher Education Management Studies, Institution for Research and Planning in Higher Education, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
After World War II, the need for skilled labors in the economic market and democratic demands provided the setting for higher education expansion in all over the world and this has become a universal phenomenon.  In addition, higher education in Iran that initiated with the justice-seeking goals has experienced significant expansion in the last two decades. Nowadays expansion of higher education has been the main issue among the policy makers in Iran. By designing a qualitative research in three stages, the current research tried to answer the following main question: does higher education expansion in Iran play a significant role in improving educational justice and access to higher education? In the first stage of the research, which was conducted through10 unstructured interviews with higher education policy makers, the reasons for the quantitative expansion of higher education were examined from their point of view. After that, 6 after revolution official developmental documents were analysed. Finally, educational justice in the years of massivism were evaluated through statistical analysis in two areas of gender and income decks as the most important variables in the analysis of access to higher education. According to the participants’ points of view and official documents analysis, the results showed that higher education expansion initiated by the valuable goals such as improving educational justice and access to higher education. However, malfunction about some main concepts such as access and educational justice have show negative consequences on higher education statistics. The results also showed that higher education expansion has an impact on declining higher education institutions’ quality and it has failed to fulfil its most important goal in the field of educational justice and access.

Keywords

1. Brewis, E. (2018). Fair access to higher education and discourse of development: A policy analysis from Indonesia. British Association for International and Comparative Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2018.1425132.
2. Dhanatya, C., & Slayton, J. (2018). Higher education massification: How US higher education is expanding its global reach trough branding, in-country and online. In Dean. E. Neubauer, K. Mok, & J. Jiang (Eds.). The sustainability of higher education in an era of post-massification (pp: 43-58). London and New York; Routledge.
3. Farasatkhah, M. (2008). Reflection on improving qualitative and quantitative access to higher education in Iran. Quarterly Journal of Research and Planning in Higher Education, 2 (2), 95-122 (in Persian).
4. Farasatkhah, M. (2017). Occasionally of university in Iran. Tehran, Iran: Agah Press (in Persian).
5. Fereidouni, S. (2016). Reflection on policies of higher education students' admission In Iran. Professional Reports. Tehran, Iran: Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education Ltd. (in Persian).
6. Fereidouni, S. (2018). Higher education expansion with emphasis on social impact; a grounded theory approach. Quarterly Journal of Research and Planning in Higher Education, 23 (4), 69-96 (in Persian).
7. Gair, S., & Baglow, L. (2018). Social justice in a tertiary education context: Do we practice what we preach? Journal of Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 13 (3), 1-10.
8. Ghanei Rad, M. (2005). Unbalanced development of higher education: Unemployment of graduates and elites' immigration. Quarterly of Social Welfare, 4 (15), 169-208 (in Persian).
9. Hemmati, R. (2014). Mass higher education and academic life in Iran: Reflection on academia’s experienced life. Quarterly of Management in Islamic Azad University. 1(5), 127-156 (in Persian).
10. Hlalele, D. (2016). University access and social justice. Southern African Journal of Higher Education, 26 (3), 487-502.
11. Javaheri, M., & Masoudi, E. (2004). Prioritizing indicators accessibility to equal opportunities in the development of academic-practical training. Quarterly of Management Featuring Studies. Research and Science Branch of Islamic Azad University, 15 (4), 1-16 (in Persian).
12. Lin, Y. (2018). Challenges to a post-mass system of higher education in Taiwan. In Dean. E. Neubauer., K. Mok., & J. Jiang (Eds.). The sustainability of higher education in an era of post-massification (pp: 72-82). London and New York; Routledge.
13. Maniee, R. (2016). Reflection on higher education in Iran according to statistics. Tehran, Iran: Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education Ltd. (in Persian).
14. McCowan, T. (2016).Three dimensions of equity of access to higher education. A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 46 (4), 645-665.
15. Mok, K., & Jiang, J. (2018). Question for entrepreneurial in Hong Kong University and Shenzhen: The promotion of Industry-university Collaboration and Entrepreneurship. In Dean. E. Neubauer, K. Mok., & J. Jiang (Eds.). The sustainability of higher education in an era of post-massification (pp: 115-133). London and New York: Routledge.
16. Nelson, K., & Creagh, T. (2012). Social justice and equity issues in the higher education context. Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.
17. Nethsinghe, R. (2018). Confronting of massification surge in higher education; sustaining the academic workforce and its excellent in Australia. In Dean. E. Neubauer., K. Mok., & J. Jiang (Eds.). The sustainability of higher education in an era of post-massification (pp: 59-71). London and New York; Routledge.
18. Salleh, I., MohamadAli, N., MohdYousef, K.H., & Jamaluddin, H. (2017). Analysing qualitative data systematically using thematic analysis for deodoriser troubleshooting in palm oil refining. Journal of Chemical Engineering Transactions, 56, 1315-1320.
19. Trow, M. (2006). Reflections on the transition from elite to mass to universal access: Forms and phases of higher education in modern societies since World War II. In Forest, J. J. F., & Altbach, P. G. (Eds.). International Handbook of Higher Education, Springer International Handbooks of Education. 18, 243-280.
20. Unterhalter, E., & Carpentier, V. (2010). Global inequalities and higher education: Whose interests are we serving? London: Palgrave Macmillan.
21. Varghese, N.V. (2016). Managing markets and massification of higher education in India. Journal of International Higher Education, 86, 13-15.
22. Vossensteyn, J., & Jongbloed, B. (2016). Access to higher education, massification and beyond. In B. Jongbloed, & H. Vossensteyn. Access and expansion post-massification. Opportunities and barriers to further growth in higher education participation. Pp: 1-9, London and New York, Routledge.

  • Receive Date 06 March 2023
  • Publish Date 06 March 2023