ABSTRACT
It is now more than half a century since Iran adopted a new form of government—constitutional monarchy. Under the new system of government centralization in most fields of national endeavour took place. According to the new constitution, active support for the expansion of education in the country became a responsibility of the national government. According to the third article of the Educational Constitution, primary education was made compulsory. The duration of compulsion was not definitely stated. In 1932 another law was passed to make primary education free of charge. In 1943 the national legislative body of the state passed an important law committing the government to the implementation of compulsory free primary education within ten years. Despite this clear legal mandate, the expansion of primary education encountered formidable obstacles and the progress made was very slow. After some years, and particularly since 1950, the expansion became more rapid. The statistics of primary school enrolment show that in 1917–8 there were only 24,033 pupils in schools. In 1940–1 this reached 167,682, and by 1960–1 the total enrolment of primary school was close to a million and a half. In the following table the total enrolment of primary schools for the last few years is given. <sc>Primary</sc> <sc>Enrolment</sc> 1957–63 (<italic>in thousands</italic>) https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
Year
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
Primary enrolment.
1,021
1,169
1,319
1·436
1,554
1,719
1,836 *
The primary pupils under the Education Corps are not included.
