Education in Iran is out centralized and is divided to K-12 education and higher education. K-12 education is supervised by the Ministry of Education and higher education is under supervision of Ministry of Science and Technology. 82% of the Iranian adult population is now literate, well ahead of the regional average of 62%. This rate increases to 97% among young adults (aged between 15 and 24) without any gender discrepancy. By 2007, Iran had a student to workforce population ratio of 10.2%, standing among the countries with highest ratio in the world.

Primary school (Dabestan) starts at the age of 6 for a duration of 5 years. Middle school, also known as orientation cycle (Rahnamayi), goes from the sixth to the eighth grade. High school (Dabirestan), for which the last three years is not mandatory, is divided between theoretical, vocational/technical and manual, each program with its own specialties.

Universities, institutes of technology, medical schools and community colleges, provide the higher education. The requirement to enter into higher education is to have a High school diploma, and finally pass the national University entrance's exam (Konkoor). Higher education is sanctioned by different levels of diplomas: Fogh-e-Diplom or Kārdāni after 2 years of higher education, Kārshenāsi (also known under the name “licence”) is delivered after 4 years of higher education (Bachelor's degree). Kārshenāsi-ye Arshad is delivered after 2 more years of study (Master's degree). After which, another exam allows the candidate to pursue a doctoral program (PhD).

Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53

Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.

The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

Mahshid Moshiri (Persian: مهشید مشیری‎) is an Iranian novelist and lexicographer. She graduated from the Sorbonne with a PhD in linguistics. She is the author of the first Persian Phono-Orthographic Dictionary. She is also an encyclopedist, and has served as the Research Vice President of The Great Persian Encyclopedia Foundation.