TEHRAN - The third national event on future schools was held on Tuesday, honoring eight top ideas from more than 200 received by the event’s secretariat.

More than 200 ideas were submitted to the secretariat, said Hamidreza Khanmohammadi, the director of the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipping Schools, adding that 174 were evaluated and, ultimately, eight were selected.

The space designed and built as a school should be multifaceted, flexible, and equipped with diverse learning environments, with an eye on the future, IRNA quoted Khanmohammadi as saying.

School should be a place where students practice living and prepare for a spiritual life, accompanied by progress, he stressed.

The third national event on future schools highlighted the use of modern technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blended learning in fostering thinking skills and creativity, as well as collaboration among the future generation of students.

Future school and the public education system (the role of teacher and student in future schools, modern teaching and learning approaches, schools and students with specific needs); Future school, a center for education and development of community (schools as social institution for the development of the neighbourhood, school’s interaction with cultural, social, and urban institutions); Future school and physical environment (designing green schools, utilizing renewable energies and modern construction technologies); and Future school, equipment, educational technologies (modern educational tools and technologies, AI-based learning platforms, digital infrastructures) were the four key topics of the event.

Technology and knowledge-based companies, consulting engineers, universities and research centers, science and technology parks, professors and students, and researchers in technical, engineering, humanities, art, and psychology fields were among the main target audiences of the event.

Currently, some 16 million students are studying in the country. Throughout the seventh National Development Plan (2023-2027), the Ministry of Education is projected to teach AI to two million students. These include elementary, junior high school, and senior high school students. 

Boosting digital literacy will prepare students for future job markets, help them develop their critical thinking, and become familiar with emerging technologies; it will also foster creativity and innovation among students.

Teaching AI to four million students

Iran Digital, a national program, aims to teach artificial intelligence to four million students free of charge in the next Iranian calendar year, which will begin on March 21, an official with the Ministry of Education has said.

Supported by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, the first phase of the initiative was launched in June 2025.

Since then, two million students have joined the program to master AI from introductory courses to programming, ISNA quoted Seyyed Ali Hosseini as saying.

Moreover, more than one thousand teachers are learning AI, attending both online and virtual training sessions. In the next four months, the Ministry of Education, in cooperation with Sharif University of Technology, will train 200,000 teachers, Hosseini noted.

Photo: Hamidreza Khanmohammadi, the director of the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipping Schools