Free and Quality Education : A Dialogue with Saeed Ghapanvari, a Distinguished Scholar
Chahardoli:
Guaranteeing equitable, free, and quality access to education for all citizens, regardless of their geographical location, ethnicity, or social class, must be on the educational system's agenda. However, the deep gap between this ideal and the existing reality manifests itself as multidimensional educational inequality. This inequality is not limited to physical facilities, but also encompasses teacher quality, access to technology, educational resources, and even "hope for the future." The educational system, which should be an engine of social mobility and bridging gaps, has often, in practice, become a tool for reproducing and consolidating deprivation and privilege from one generation to the next.
The striking symbol of this injustice is the comparison between advanced schools in metropolitan areas and the dilapidated, multi-shift schools in border regions, rural areas, and urban outskirts. The growth of fee-charging private schools as a "parallel educational system" for the affluent class has deepened this gap and distorted the principle of equal access. Educational equity is a strategic necessity for sustainable development and national security, because ignoring talent due to birthplace or poverty not only squanders human capital but also sows the seeds of social division and mistrust.
Ghapanvari:
Sometimes gaps are a window to the outside and a way out, and sometimes they create distance and deepen a concept. Education is the origin that expands this concept, where educational ranking turns priority into discrimination. Equality, regardless of the school category within an educational institution, must prioritize learning. Talent, in any place and under any circumstances, can make itself noticed. Then, by creating and developing conditions and facilities, it can manifest with immense output. Yet these conditions, in the absence of educational equity, can dim many of these manifestations. Emptying classrooms of talented students and gathering them in a specific place will cause stagnation in many other educational settings, because an active and talented learner can sometimes be the driving force for motivating activity in other students; removing this motivation will have far more damaging consequences. Therefore, we must transform the classroom within a dynamic tension—moving it away from enforced homogeneity toward a competition between the weaker and the more talented—so that this undulating movement of action and reaction leads to the discovery of new genius.
Chahardoli:
The point is precisely here: educational equity does not mean uniformity, but rather providing a minimum quality standard for all, so that talent can flourish anywhere. When special or private schools remove talented students from the ordinary fabric of schools, they not only deprive those ordinary schools of their internal driving forces, but also a class divide is created, separating the "winners" and "losers" of the system. This process distances "education" from its original mission—nurturing aware and capable human beings to build a more balanced society—and turns it into a machine for selection and segregation. True equity means investing specifically in deprived schools, so that a talented student in a remote village can envision a bright future for themselves and their community based solely on their merit, not hindered by a lack of a motivated teacher or a laboratory.
Therefore, the key principle is "diversity along with equality of opportunity." A just system should not separate talents from their local context, but rather create conditions where that same talent can shine in that very local environment while simultaneously influencing its surroundings. The presence of a talented student in an ordinary classroom can create healthy competition, an indirect transfer of learning skills, and a rise in collective expectations. This is the same "dynamic tension" you rightly pointed out. The educational system's duty is to create dynamic learning ecosystems in every school, not the selective extraction of elites and transferring them to ivory towers. When every classroom becomes a space for the interaction of various abilities, then we can hope that educational equity will be understood not as a cost, but as a profitable investment for the whole society. This perspective moves education from ruthless individual competition toward cooperative competition, which ultimately benefits the entire community.
Ghapanvari:
Heidegger uses the term "the Anyone" ("das Man") to describe uniformity and indifference in people, and believes that transformation in such levelized individuals is not a possibility. If we apply this term to a classroom society characterized by uniformity—in terms of facilities, talent potential, and other factors, including delinquency and so on—and also add the removal of self-chosen preferences, we have, in Foucault's terms, denied that gathering the possibility of singularity. Setting aside facilities like libraries, spaces for inquiry, and computer access, how can we expect the transformation and revolution of a talented mind from this kind of uniformity? We all share in the agreement that the output must be able to meet our educational needs to fulfill the conditions. But this premeditated homogenization can entangle all expectations in a blind knot and send us the message that learning, in part, is formalistic and unmotivated education. Ultimately, this merely creates credentialist expectations in society, accompanied by an accumulation of complexes and lack of motivation, the consequences of which can be paralyzing in parts of the community.
Chahardoli:
I understand. What I gather from our conversation is this: Educational equity does not mean uniformity, but rather guaranteeing everyone access to quality education; an education that can nurture talent in every corner of the country. Our critiques of the existing inequalities in Iran's educational system—from the differences between urban and rural schools to the segregation of talented students into special schools—warn that such a trend distances education from its primary mission of nurturing aware human beings and creating social mobility, turning it into a tool for reproducing class divisions. In contrast, the solution lies in creating "dynamic tension" and preserving diversity alongside equality of opportunity; meaning that the educational system should transform schools into dynamic ecosystems where interaction among students with different abilities itself creates motivation and constructive competition. In more philosophical terms, formalistic uniformity and the elimination of intellectual diversity lead to mental stagnation and demotivation, ultimately preventing society from achieving true growth. Therefore, educational equity is not a social cost but a strategic investment for development, cultural dynamism, and rebuilding public trust.