I accompanied an Afghan woman named Maryam to her district’s Department of Education and to the school where her 12-year-old son, Mohammad, once attended. Originally from Mazar-e-Sharif, Maryam has lived in Iran for 24 years. This year, her son was denied enrollment. Maryam hoped that having an Iranian citizen at her side might ease the process.
She carried with her a referral letter issued by the Ministry of Interior, which her husband had obtained after spending 10 exhausting days lining up and pleading at the office responsible for issuing these certificates for Afghan children. Maryam handed the letter to the official in charge of primary schools and asked for a written recommendation so Mohammad could be registered at his former school, Be’sat Elementary.
The official requested the family’s documents: Maryam’s, her husband’s, and Mohammad’s. Her husband held a passport, but she and her son only had census slips, which are temporary registration papers. After reviewing all the documents, the official said flatly, “Schools don’t enroll people with two different kinds of documents.”
Maryam asked, “Then why did the Ministry of Interior give us this referral letter?”
The official shrugged. “I don’t even know why they let you people stay here at all,” he replied. “In any case, your child will not be enrolled.”
Decades of uncertainty
Over the past four decades, the education of Afghan children in Iran has been marked by constant uncertainty. Despite the Iranian government’s accession to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in early 1994, refugee children’s right to education has repeatedly been undermined by shifting state policies toward foreign nationals.
In some years, schools were ordered to accept all children, whether they were officially documented or not. In others, especially recently, authorities have imposed severe restrictions on the right to education based on families’ residency status. Whether Afghan children could study for free or were charged additional “foreign student” fees has also varied arbitrarily from year to year.
Since 2006, the number of non-Iranian students in Iranian schools has increased steadily. This year, following the mass expulsion of Afghans from Iran, enrollment of Afghan students has dropped by more than 50 percent. On November 4, the Ministry of Interior announced, “Last year, there were 700,000 Afghan students in our schools. Of these, 280,000 have since left Iran, and this year only about 320,000 remain enrolled.”
Bureaucratic maze
In late September, authorities changed the education registration rules for children holding census slips. If one parent possessed valid residency documents — such as an Amayesh refugee card, a family passport, or a residency passport — they could obtain a referral letter for their child from a designated center in Eslamshahr. Mohammad’s letter had been issued under this policy.
Trusting the validity of the September announcement, we pressed our case, arguing that Mohammad was entitled to be enrolled. The official told us to wait outside while she checked the school’s capacity. Ten minutes passed, then 20, without a word. Finally, a higher-ranking man walked by, noticed our anxious faces, and realized the clerk was deliberately delaying us. He took the referral letter, put his signature on its back, and wrote:
“To the respected principal of [school name], please enroll Mohammad … in grade six.”
Maryam’s face brightened instantly, erasing the exhaustion she had been experiencing. We set off toward the school, hopeful that this long and humiliating process might finally end in success.
A certificate without credibility
The principal was not at the school so we went to see the school clerk. When he saw the referral letter and the note written on its back he asked for Maryam’s documents and then repeated the same excuse we’d heard at the education office: “We don’t enroll people with two different kinds of documents.”
Maryam protested, “You told us that if we brought a referral letter the problem would be solved.” The clerk said the decision was up to the principal. We asked when he would return. “An hour, two hours — maybe he won’t come back at all,” was the reply.
Maryam and I sat on chairs in the corridor and started talking. I asked what had happened to her during the recent months of turmoil that Afghan residents have endured in Iran. She answered, “We were terribly worried we might be forced to leave Iran. I hardly remember Afghanistan anymore. My children were born here and have never seen it. Whenever the possibility of leaving came up, Mohammad would ask if he could go to school there. We told him most schools in Afghanistan are religious and you have to wear a lungi and long shirt. He always said he didn’t want to go.”
The recess bell rang. Short, restless children poured out of the classrooms and ran into the yard to play. I spotted two or three Afghan children among them. I told Maryam that I had noticed how empty the school seemed. She explained it was , “because they didn’t register many Afghan children this year. Many of our compatriots live in this part of Tehran, and so this school used to have a lot of Afghan pupils. But this year almost none were enrolled. Mohammad studied at this same school for five years.”
Worried about the principal’s likely refusal, Maryam was feeling desperate: “I want to tell them I’ll clean your school for free — just accept my son.” I said, “Don’t offer anything like that. We have an official letter from the Ministry of Interior signed by one of the education directors. You don’t owe them anything. We will also pay whatever fees are required.” I asked Maryam to let me do the talking if the principal returned to the school.
After an hour or two of waiting, the principal showed up. We showed him the referral letter and the documents and heard the same reply as given by his clerk: “We don’t enroll people with mixed documentation. I’m sorry.” I asked the principal, “So the Ministry of Interior’s letter and Mr. X’s signature are meaningless?”
He answered, “They issue their own authorizations, but then a couple of days later they come for inspections and criticize me for enrolling a child with mixed documents or a census slip; it causes me trouble. Just last June, out of 350 Afghan pupils my school had, 330 were denied their final report cards — even though they had been officially registered.”
I said, “You can’t have double standards. The boy’s father spent 10 days from two in the morning until two in the afternoon standing in line in Eslamshahr to get this paper that you now say is invalid. He relied on what you said. Please allow Mohammad to complete his final year of primary school in the same school where he has already spent five years. Why is it the fault of the child that different agencies cannot agree on their own rules?”
The principal asked me, “Who are you to them?” I said, “A friend.” He smiled and said, “All right. I will enroll him — on one condition: the parents must sign a pledge that if, in June during the final exams, the education department objects, refuses to recognize the results, and withholds a sixth-grade certificate, they will not lodge a complaint. We will verify the registration through the Ministry of Interior’s system and let you know in a day or two. You must also pay … tomans toward materials, books and handouts.”
As we left the school, Maryam said, “If you hadn’t been with me they would have treated me differently.” I had realized the same. They had listened and changed their minds because an Iranian had accompanied her. Because I was there, the education officials had agreed to our request.
Double injustice
After receiving that tentative promise, we went to Hijrat School. After losing hope that Be’sat would accept Mohammad, Maryam had enrolled him there, despite its poor standards, so he would not miss out on even a minimal education.
We wanted to see how much of the registration fee the officials at Hijrat School would refund, especially as they’d taken it and then broken their promise. On Mohammad’s second day of class, the school’s vice principal had stopped him at the door and said he couldn’t attend regular classes because he lacked proper documentation. “If inspectors from the education department come, we’ll be questioned,” he’d said. Instead, Mohammad was told he could come only two hours a day, not in the morning like other students, but from five to seven in the evening, where he would sit in a segregated classroom meant for undocumented children.
The school’s finance officer told us that 40 percent of the fee would be withheld — allegedly for books, administrative costs, and three weeks of salary for the teacher. The deduction was excessive and unjustified, but we had to accept it.
Before leaving, I copied the address written on the principal’s office door — the location of the center that issues referral letters for Afghan students:
Eslamshahr, opposite Bahramabad, Deh Abbas village, Shahid Soleimani Sports Complex.
The long line of children left behind
Early in the morning, I arrived in Eslamshahr. A month had already passed since the school year began, yet a large crowd still stood pressed against the metal railings outside the office that issues school referral letters for Afghan students. They were there to get their children into school.
I spoke to a man shielding his head with a folder against the sharp morning sun. His name was Abdullah. When I asked how long he had been waiting, he laughed and replied, “Do you mean how many days or how many hours?” Lowering the folder, he continued, “This is my sixth day coming here since two in the morning, hoping it’ll finally be my turn. Not consecutively, of course — my employer won’t let me take more than one day off in a row. He says his construction work stops without me. So I come every other day, and still my turn hasn’t come. You see this crowd? It’s like this every day, sometimes even worse. The hall inside can barely hold three or four hundred people, but thousands come daily. Someone wrote our names down, but when I first came, there were already 423 people ahead of me. At seven in the morning, a few officials came out and scrambled the line, then turned a water hose on us to scatter the crowd, shouting all the while about the noise. Then the police came. Their behavior toward us isn’t humane at all. I’ve even seen staff here secretly take money from some people and send them inside out of turn. My turn should come soon now. I just hope I can get the letter today. It’s already been three weeks since school started, and my child is falling behind.”
Women and children sat exhausted on the ground nearby. Abdullah gestured toward them. “Do you see this misery? There’s no water, no food, not even a single toilet. Is it fair for women and children to be treated this way? They told us not to come here without booking an online appointment, but our situation doesn’t fit any of the options in their form. My wife has a census slip, and I have a residency passport. That combination doesn’t exist in their system.”
I searched the center’s website: National Union of Offices for the Residence and Employment of Foreign Nationals. Under “type of document,” there were only three choices — family passport, Amayesh card, or residency booklet (for political refugees). No wonder it had taken Mohammad’s father 10 days to get his letter; he had a residency passport.
Nearby, a woman sat in the shade with her 10-year-old son. I asked if he was her only school-aged child. “No,” she said, “I have an older daughter, too. She hasn’t been able to attend school this year either. Our residency documents are registered in Mashhad, and they tell us our children must study there. But my husband and I work in Varamin. How can we suddenly move to another city after 20 years of living here? I finally managed to get an online appointment using my Amayesh card. Now we’re just waiting to be called so we can get the referral and enroll the kids.”
A man who overheard joined in. “This is my fourth day coming here. My document won’t show up in their system. Today I brought my brother to see if his ID code might work instead. Even the staff here are puzzled why our passport numbers aren’t being recognized.”
By noon, no one was being allowed inside. A few families emerged from the building, smiling and clutching their newly issued referral letters, heading off to the next step — the school. Yet even with these precious papers in hand, there was no guarantee their children would be accepted.
Secret schooling
A week passed, and no one from the school had called Maryam about Mohammad. On Saturday morning, Maryam decided to go there herself. As she arrived, she saw several of her compatriots leaving the school empty-handed as the principal had turned them away. She phoned me, asking whether she should go in or not. “Go,” I told her. “Say your friend — the one who was with you that day — is on her way.”
A short while later, she called again, her voice bright with relief. Mohammad had been enrolled. But the school was now asking for nearly twice the amount they had quoted before. They told her that they had accepted her son only because he was “a polite, well-behaved boy,” and, as they put it, “because your friend that day won over the principal’s favour.”
In the end, they imposed one final condition: no one was to know that Mohammad had been enrolled at Be’sat School.
Maryam sighed and said, “We agreed to everything — it doesn’t matter. Seeing Mohammad happy and studying in a decent place is worth everything to me.”
I laughed and said, “One day, when he grows up, he can write a story about this — ‘Secret schooling with official permission.’”
Homa Majd is a freelance journalist in Iran.
