Iran rings in new school year with call for better life

Iran has begun the new school year, with President Hassan Rouhani underlining the need to promote mutual respect and work toward building a better country.

Rouhani rang in the new school year on Sunday for about 14 million students who are offered curriculum in a variety of subjects in 92,800 educational centers across the country.

The president attended a high school for girls in downtown Tehran along with Education Minister Mohammad Bat-Ha’ei, calling the first school day “a new attempt to ascend the stairway of sublimation, and to create a better Iran.”

“A school is a place for science, education, upbringing, skill, and preparedness that enables one to enter the society,” he told the students, underlining the need to teach mutual respect at schools.

Rouhani also touched on the terrorist attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on Saturday, saying some of those killed or injured were about to attend classes.

In line with the tradition, Iran’s president poses a question to Iranian students every year to encourage them on honing their critical and analytical skills and forging better interaction with their instructors.

This year, Rouhani asked the students about the nature of the skills which they deemed most important to life.

The president also inaugurated via a video conference 59 schools rebuilt in the western province of Kermanshah, which was hit by a deadly earthquake last year.