TEHRAN – The budget of the Special Education Organization has increased by 35 percent in the national budget bill for the next calendar year (starting on March 20), Seyed Javad Hosseini, head of the Organization, has announced.

A total of 1.7 trillion rials (around $40 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) has been proposed for special education in the budget bill, which shows an increase of 35 percent, he stated, IRNA reported on Monday.

This is while another 2 trillion rials (about $44 million) has been proposed, and if it receives approval, the Organization’s budget will experience a rise of over 300 percent, he noted.

He went on to say that the additional budget is planned to be spent on facilities needed by the students suffering from disabilities, including wheelchairs, hearing aids, and glasses.

The Ministry of Education will receive a budget of 1.1 quadrillion rials (nearly $26 billion), equivalent to 13.4 percent of the whole national budget, which has increased by 72.5 percent compared to the current year, he explained.

The government submitted the draft of the national budget bill for the next year to the parliament (Majlis) on December 2, 2020.

The proposed budget amounted to about 24.357 quadrillion rials (about $580 billion), with a 20-percent rise from the current year’s budget.

Supplying basic goods, treatment, and medical equipment; securing livelihood; supporting production and employment; promoting and supporting non-oil exports and knowledge-based companies are the focal points of the bill.

253,000 special students studying in Iran

Hosseini in October 2020 said that some 253,000 students with special education needs are studying in 1,600 special education schools in the country, and the number of students has increased 17 times since its establishment.

He added that there are 8,008 students with special education needs in the villages of the country, mainly in Khorasan Razavi, Tehran, Gilan, Mazandaran, and Hormozgan provinces.

This organization provides services tailored to the needs of students in each region. Therefore, the linguistic, regional, and indigenous needs of students in these schools are taken into account.

Education designed to facilitate the learning of individuals who, for a wide variety of reasons, require additional support and adaptive pedagogical methods in order to participate and meet learning objectives in an educational program. Reasons may include (but are not limited to) disadvantages in physical, behavioral, intellectual, emotional, and social capacities.

Educational program in special needs education may follow a similar curriculum as that offered in the parallel regular education system, however, they take individuals’ particular needs into account by providing specific resources (e.g. specially trained personnel, equipment, or space) and, if appropriate, modified educational content or learning objectives.

These programs can be offered for individual students within already existing educational programs, or be offered as a separate class in the same or separate educational institutions.

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