Iranian news agencies have reported, citing the Minister of Education, that the 1405–1406 academic year will begin on the first day of Mehr in person in all schools across the country.

Alireza Kazemi, Iran’s Minister of Education, told reporters on Friday, September 13: “We have seen all the necessary arrangements for the start of the academic year, and all the programs that needed to go through their final process will do so, and we are fully prepared so that this year’s academic year will be different from all previous years, with a different atmosphere in schools.”

Non-in-person classes in Iran’s schools began after the outbreak of the coronavirus, and in recent years this process—due to various reasons including air pollution, heat, energy shortages, protests, and war—was carried out repeatedly across the country and sometimes on a regional basis.