Student, teacher, and school are considered the three main components of the educational system of any country. These three components, both individually and in combination, reflect the level and standards of education in a country. Changes and developments in the components of student and teacher, as human forces, require long-term and time-consuming programs; in other words, they are considered part of the cultural and social changes of a country.

But as a place, school is different from the other two components in terms of being a place where educational exchanges take place. Schools provide the necessary facilities and tools for educating children and adolescents, and usually, by implementing structured programs and spending necessary costs, any country can quickly acquire the necessary infrastructure to reach optimal schools.

But thirty-six years after the revolution of Bahman 57 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic system, despite abundant oil and financial resources in Iran, schools in this country are still deprived of one of the basic necessities of an educational place, which is safety. After the implementation of five development programs and extensive media campaigns in the field of technological and scientific advancements over the past three decades, an official in the Ministry of Education of the eleventh government speaks of the existence of 120,000 classrooms throughout the country that lack standard heating systems. In other words, one-third of the country’s schools still have unsafe heating systems. According to the same official, this number of classrooms accommodates nearly 3.2 million students.

This means that every year with the beginning of the cold season, the danger of fire is lurking for this number of Iranian students. Among them, students from marginalized areas, deprived counties and villages are more vulnerable. The heating system in the classrooms of these areas, due to lack of facilities and extreme deprivation, does not meet the necessary safety standards. In fact, this is the reason why almost all fire incidents in the past two decades have occurred in these areas.

In 1997, a fire in a primary school in Shaft County, Gilan, resulted in severe burns for the class teacher and 11 other students. The selflessness and sacrifice of the class teacher, Hassan Omidzadeh, saved the lives of the students. He passed away at the age of 58 in July 2012 after enduring 15 years of pain and suffering from his burns. In another incident, 13 underprivileged students from the village of Safilan in Lordegan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, suffered burns of over 40%. This incident occurred in November 2004. Two years later, in December 2006, the collapse of a heater in the only heating source for a classroom in Shahid Rahimi School in Dordzan, Fars province, resulted in another tragedy that was not reported by the authorities for a long time. Eight students suffered severe burns to their head and hands. In November 201

But Shinabad was not the only recent incident. In this same month of Azar this year, the use of non-standard oil heaters in a rural school in Ardabil led to a fire that, according to local officials, did not result in any casualties.

What was presented is only a small part of the fires in schools in the country, and as history shows, it has not been limited to a specific period. Many of these incidents have been kept away from the media’s attention and sometimes the accurate statistics of the victims are not provided due to pressures from government officials.

On the other hand, the use of unsafe heating devices is not limited to remote and underprivileged counties; students in large provinces are also struggling with cold classrooms. According to one member of parliament, 5% of schools in Isfahan use oil lamps as heating systems, while approximately 10% of all students in Isfahan attend classes in these schools. Some of these rural schools are located in cold and remote areas, where the lack of proper heating systems and cold classrooms pose potential hazards and cause unexpected closures.

One of the solutions that officials have implemented in the past two years is forcing students to study in cold classrooms without heaters. For example, according to news agencies, many students in nomadic schools in the northern province of Khuzestan are studying in cold tents without any heating equipment during the winter season. According to the orders of responsible authorities, these schools are not allowed to use oil heaters.

In fact, instead of spending the necessary expenses and creating suitable shelters for students’ education, the education authorities have preferred to completely eliminate the problem. As a result, over the past three decades and despite the enormous financial resources that have been generated for various governments in the Islamic Republic through the sale of oil, we still have to witness heartbreaking incidents of fires and more student casualties every winter. As history shows, changes in governments and education officials have also had no effect on preventing school fires. This is while, according to a member of the Health and Treatment Commission of the Parliament, the cost of equipping a 6-classroom school with a safe heating system is only 20 million tomans. (5)

A look at the exorbitant costs that are spent every year on various occasions for media and ideological advertising in education, as well as other government agencies, shows that the main problem in solving the problem of school fires is not budget shortages, but rather the incompetence and irresponsibility of government officials in various eras. Despite this, the head of the School Renovation Organization, in his latest statement, has mentioned the budget shortage for equipping schools in the current year and has promised to equip all schools in the country with standard heating systems by the end of 2016; a promise that has been repeated for years and is unlikely to be implemented with these management conditions.

Sources:

Tabnak News Website, December 8th, 2014

Isna News Agency, 6 Azar 1393

3- Mehr News Agency, November 7th, 2014

Mehr News Agency, November 5th, 2014

Khorasan Newspaper, December 8th, 2014