TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) -- Families have a great influence on how young people view university entrance exams, so they should change their attitude toward the exams, sociologist Gholam-Reza Ali-Zadeh told the Mehr News Agency.

Families must realize that universities have limitations and can only accept the top 13 percent of students who take the exam, Dr. Ali-Zadeh added.

He went on to say that we cannot judge students’ knowledge and talent only through the results of university entrance exams and should not assume that one who passes the exam is smart, clever, and intelligent, and one who fails is lazy. He added that this would make students feel that failure means the end of life, saying that would be a wrong assumption because there are many uneducated people who are happier than educated people.

He said that we should try to ingrain the idea in the culture that due to some restrictions, only a limited number can enter universities and passing the university entrance exam is not the goal of life.

“In some countries such as Germany, there is only a 10 percent difference between the average income of a person with an associate of arts (A.A.) degree and a person with a B.A. degree, but in our country there is a direct relationship between the level of education and the salary a person receives. This has made the youth of our society anxious to get higher degrees,” he noted.

“Families should be aware of the fact that attending university is not the only path to prosperity,” Ali-zadeh said.