Education in IranEducation in Iran is centralized and divided into K-12 education plus higher education. Elementary and secondary education is supervised by the Ministry of Education and higher education is under the supervision of Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and Ministry of Health and Medical Education for medical sciences. As of 2016, around 86% of the Iranian adult population is literate. This rate increases to 97% among young adults ages between 15 and 24 without any gender consideration.
Fossil fuel subsidiesFossil fuel subsidies are energy subsidies on fossil fuels. They may be tax breaks on consumption, such as a lower sales tax on natural gas for residential heating; or subsidies on production, such as tax breaks on exploration for oil. Or they may be free or cheap negative externalities; such as air pollution or climate change due to burning gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Some fossil fuel subsidies are via electricity generation, such as subsidies for coal-fired power stations.
Foreign relations of IranThe foreign relations of Iran are the economic and diplomatic relationships between the Iranian government and governments of other countries. Geography is a very significant factor in informing Iran's foreign policy. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the newly formed Islamic Republic, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, dramatically reversed the pro-American foreign policy of the last Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Iranian diasporaThe Iranian diaspora refers to Iranian people or those who are of Iranian ancestry living outside Iran. In 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran published statistics, which showed that 4,037,258 Iranians are living abroad, an increase from previous years. Many of them live in North America, Europe, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Australia and the broader Middle East. Other studies have estimated about 1.5 million or fewer Iranians living abroad.
