Iran’s female teachers push for change amid leadership gaps and economic strain
Women dominate the country’s education sector in terms of numbers, but only make up a tiny percentage of its management. Working in a highly politicized atmosphere, they are under constant pressure to deliver the Islamic republic’s prescribed curriculum. Most face precarious employment conditions and economic uncertainty. Galvanized by the 2022 uprising and growing economic pressure, grassroots activism is gaining traction among female teachers, despite oppressive work conditions.
Iran’s educational system employed 534,941 teachers in 2021, reflecting a significant decline from 2013, when the total number of teachers was reported as 897,000. Women made up 60% of this workforce—approximately 320,965 educators, according to Ministry of Education statements to the state media. These women have reportedly been vital to educating over 9.3 million students out of 15.9 million across 113,174 schools nationwide.
Despite this dominance in teaching roles, women face systemic challenges, including underrepresentation in leadership and inequities in working conditions. Women held only 7% of managerial roles in the education sector in 2017, despite comprising the majority of the teaching workforce, according to Asr Iran news site.
“Teachers in cities like Tehran are more likely to have access to leadership roles because of better resources and more progressive policies,” said Soran Lotfi, former spokesperson for the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Associations. “However, women in rural areas, such as Sistan and Baluchestan, face a unique set of challenges. These women not only have fewer resources but also encounter significant cultural barriers that limit their opportunities.”
In addition to leadership barriers, women face gender-specific legal challenges. Article 18 of the Civil Service Management Law grants family-related benefits primarily to men, offering them to women only in limited circumstances, such as being heads of households or having disabled spouses. This exclusion unjustly denies many women critical support and entrenches workplace inequality, Lotfi noted.
The “lower tier” in higher education
In Iran’s higher education system, women are still significantly underrepresented in faculty positions, despite their overrepresentation in classrooms. In the 2020–21 academic year, women made up only 27.6% of the total faculty, with 24,015 female faculty members out of 86,889, according to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
This stark gender gap in academic staff is particularly concerning when compared to the significant presence of women in the classroom. While the regime has promoted these figures as a success of the revolution’s educational policies, the reality is that most women remain confined to lower-tier academic positions, with limited access to leadership roles.
Recent reports suggest a slight increase in women’s participation. Women now comprise 30% of faculty members as of 2022–23, according to a state news report quoting Ali-Baqer Taheri-Nia, Deputy Minister of Science, Research, and Technology. Out of 79,101 full-time faculty members, 54% are assistant professors, 20% are associate professors, and 9% are full professors.
Taheri-Nia, a conservative figure closely aligned with the ideological framework of the Islamic Republic, often promotes such figures as evidence of the system’s commitment to advancing women’s roles within the confines of its gendered policies. His statements, however, are part of a broader political agenda that seeks to showcase incremental gains as ideological victories while masking systemic barriers.
The systemic exclusion of women from decision-making positions is starkly evident, said Satar Rahmani, a labor rights activist and education researcher with the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI).
In Iran, according to available data, women make up 15.8% of full-time faculty members with doctoral degrees at universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. However, only 3.8% of these women have achieved the rank of full professor, representing just 5.8% of all full professors nationwide.1
This marginalization extends beyond academia. Women comprise over 60% of university admissions, according to Torsihnameh.ir, but their representation in leadership roles—such as university presidencies and heads of scientific institutions—remains negligible. Within the education system, where women dominate classrooms, high-level management positions are similarly out of reach. These figures expose a system that stifles women’s potential, relegating them to the margins of influence despite their overwhelming contributions.Despite holding doctorates, many women are forced into teaching lower-level schools, struggling to secure jobs far below their qualifications. This is partly caused by gender bias in labor laws: Women’s quotas in employment have been reduced, often restricting them to roles in care, nursing, education, and service industries. Low wages, a consequence of these policies, often forces women to take second jobs to survive, Rahmani said, while overcrowded classrooms and mandatory hijab policies further hinder their professional efforts.
Profit-driven education
As Tehran Bureau’s previous reporting on women working in the country’s crumbling health sector has shown, Iran’s opaque privatization has been devastating for employees in sectors formally managed by the state, including educators. It has led to a significant shift in resources from public to private schools, with private school enrollment nearly tripling from 620,068 students in 1979 to 1,870,614 in 2021, according to Tasnim News.
This shift has been accompanied by the emergence of “luxury” schools, where tuition fees have soared to as high as 50 million toman ($713, at an exchange rate of 70,100 toman/$1) per year as of July 2023. This is a significant sum when the average monthly income is around $300, highlighting the growing divide between private and public education access.
Amid this transformation, one of the most pressing challenges is the precarization of teaching jobs. In 2020, more than 100,000 teachers in Iran found themselves working under non-appointed, insecure contracts, a 2017 study2 has found, with women disproportionately affected by this trend. The proliferation of private schools has only intensified this issue, as women—particularly those teaching humanities—are more likely to be employed in private institutions, where job security is non-existent and benefits are minimal.
“The government has minimized the conditions for official employment and uses contractual teaching staff or corporate forces,” said Lotfi. The erosion of stable employment is compounded by a deeply entrenched gender disparity in leadership roles, which excludes female educators from positions of influence in the workforce.
The challenges faced by female teachers extend far beyond their underrepresentation in leadership. They are also subjected to exploitative working conditions that reflect the very nature of a privatized, profit-driven education system. Female teachers, “more inclined to this type of job,” are often forced to take positions with minimal income—not out of desire, but out of necessity, driven by “unemployment and poor livelihoods,” said Lotfi.
In many private schools, female educators face the dual burden of precarious employment and an environment of constant oversight where their teaching methods and content are strictly controlled. This increased monitoring contributes to a sense of alienation from the teaching profession, further distancing teachers from their role as agents of change and development, according to the 2017 study.
Moreover, these teachers face a lack of support, especially those who are mothers. “Women should have access to child care facilities, such as on-site kindergartens,” and be provided with special privileges to balance work and family responsibilities, said Lotfi. “We do not see such privileges in education.” This only exacerbates the challenges female teachers face both economically and in terms of job security,” Lotfi added.
Another consequence of privatization and underemployment is women’s increasing reliance on private tutoring as a survival strategy. Many female educators, particularly those locked out of stable, formal employment, are forced to turn to private tutoring to make ends meet. Educated women are often left to navigate a fragmented, informal job market, tutoring in subjects like mathematics, English, and test preparation to make ends meet.
According to Lotfi, the systemic failure to accommodate female educators in the formal job market “strips women of job security, silences their voices in leadership, and forces them into exploitative and informal avenues of work.”The result is a deeply flawed education system that undermines the potential of both educators and students, perpetuating a cycle of inequality that is difficult to break.
Gaining traction: Teachers’ unions and political activism
Despite myriad systemic obstacles, teachers’ activism is a vital force for change in the educational sector, according to Lotfi. The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Associations, which Lotfi helped lead, has been instrumental in organizing protests and advocating for better conditions for teachers—particularly female teachers.
“The struggle for gender equality in education is not just about numbers,” Lotfi explained. “It’s about the policies that keep women out of leadership positions. Over the years, the teachers’ movement has grown stronger, especially with the rise of social media. Women teachers are leading grassroots efforts, and the movement is gaining traction.”
One of the most powerful examples of this growing activism occurred during the 2022 uprising, where women led the charge for social change, not only in the education sector but across Iranian society. Lotfi explained that while women have made strides in education, the broader societal movement, including the 2022 protests, underscored their growing political and social influence.
Despite women dominating classrooms in Iran, entrenched patriarchy in society and governance limits their leadership opportunities. Soran Lotfi highlights a dual challenge: a “traditional and patriarchal view” in society and an “ideological, patriarchal view” in government.
Women rarely hold significant managerial roles, and those who do often perpetuate repression, with Lotfi noting, “Women who have achieved these management positions have suppressed women more than men.” While systemic barriers persist, growing resilience fuels hope. As Lotfi observes, the government’s fear of women reflects their rising potential, though significant societal and structural obstacles remain.
- Ebrahimpour, S. (2017). Narrative of Women’s Experiences in Promotion to Professorship at Universities of Iran. Social Welfare Quarterly, 17(66), 53-106.
- Naghshband, A., & Yavand Taheri, M. (2017). The commodification of education in Iran and its impact on female teachers. Journal of Education and Labor Studies, 13(3), 293-309.