After making startling advances in expanding public education and increasing literacy over the last three decades, Iran appears to be facing a major setback in education.

The number of students dropping out of school is more than 25%, says the secretary of the Assn. of Iranian Social Workers, according to news website Aftabnews.

The official, Mostafa Eghlimi, added that the figure is especially worrisome because kids who drop out of school are at greater risk of getting involved in crime or drugs, already an epidemic in Iran.

Eghlimi blamed the educational establishment for the high dropout rates. 

He cited outdated textbooks, overworked teaching staff, lack of specialized care for different students and kids' personal problems outside the classroom as the reasons for the  dropout problem. 

Officials are saying that females are faring better than males:  The number of illiterate girls is decreasing, while more and more boys aren't learning to read, according to Mohammad Mehdizadeh, an official for the nation's anti-literacy campaign cited by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

In fact, he said, for the first time in the history of Iran, the number of illiterate men is higher than that of women in Iran.

-- Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Photo: Iranian students hold an anti-American placard during an annual state-backed rally in front of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, marking the anniversary of takeover of the embassy in 1979 by militant students. Credit: Vahid Salemi / Associated Press

An Egyptian blogger whose case epitomized the struggle for freedom of expression in cyberspace has been freed after serving four years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and defaming President Hosni Mubarak.

Human rights organizations announced Wednesday that Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, the blogger known as Kareem Amer, had been released from prison. His ordeal has highlighted the Egyptian government’s concern over dissident voices arising on websites and social networks that are trickier to control than traditional opposition media outlets.

“We are deeply relieved and happy to know that Kareem’s nightmare is over and he is free at last,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. “Nothing will be able to erase his four years of suffering as a result of a totally unjustified conviction, but at least he will no longer be the scapegoat of Egyptian government anger at criticism expressed by bloggers. We will closely monitor the behavior of the authorities towards Kareem in the coming months and we will be ready to report any attempt to intimidate him.”

Mohammed Mustapha, a waiter in a Cairo cafe, likes to smoke, but he's not fond of the pictures the Egyptian government stamps on each pack of cigarettes: teeth rotted from gum disease, a limp cigarette suggesting impotence or a man with emphysema tethered to an oxygen mask.

With graphic advertising, new bans and taxes on tobacco, the Egyptian government seems serious about curbing the nation's epidemic number of smokers. But, as with many things in this country of 80 million, contradictions undermine appearances. Most Egyptians smoke Cleopatra cigarettes, manufactured by a company controlled by the government.

Egypt leads the Arab world in tobacco consumption. In 2009, the World Health Organization reported that 38% of Egyptian males use tobacco of some sort and that 32% smoke cigarettes. Females admit to much less smoking -- below 1% -- because it is taboo in this patriarchal culture.

Can Israel be a democratic and Jewish state at the same time? It's a divisive, long-running debate that has now found its way into the classroom -- or rather, it's about to get kicked out of school.

Israeli Education Ministry officials have moved to slash funding for high-school civics classes, where students learn about democracy, equal rights and government, and shift the money to religious teachings about the Bible, the Talmud and Zionism.

"We have nothing against Jewish studies,'' one teacher told Haaretz newspaper,"but bolstering them should not come at the expense of civics." 

A groundbreaking survey of Syrian public opinion conducted in secret has revealed what many in the region already knew about widespread dissatisfaction with the prevailing political and economic conditions and the government's ability to confront them, but according to the study's authors, the real triumph was conducting any kind of opinion poll at all.

"The most surprising result had nothing to do with survey findings, but rather the fact that you could get this data collected. People really wanted to talk," said the study's lead author, professor Angela Hawken of Pepperdine University. The report was commissioned by the Democracy Council of California.

Because nongovernmental surveys are illegal in Syria, researchers around the country worked under the radar to interview 1,046 diverse respondents over several weeks earlier this year. The results show most Syrians think the state is corrupt and incapable of solving the problems brought on by deteriorating political and economic conditions. A majority also said they believe that the state of emergency in Syria should be lifted and that the threat of war is far less crucial than concerns about political freedom, corruption and the cost of living.

The 259 students who graduated this year from the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco’s only English-language college, are practically guaranteed a job -- unlike those Moroccans who went through the country’s French-inspired education system.

Commencement weekend at AUI, as it is commonly known, is not a very Moroccan affair. The atmosphere at the campus, set amid the pine and cedar forests of the Mid-Atlas mountain range, is part Swiss ski village, part Ivy League college. The university is in Ifrane, a mountain resort originally built for the French colonial elite wishing to escape the summer heat of Casablanca and Rabat. On a recent weekend in June, it was beset by a different kind of elite: AUI’s class of 2010 and their proud parents.

It was quickly obvious from the speeches that AUI did things the American way. 

“AUI gives you not just a degree but a whole new personality,” said alumni President Khalid Baddou. 

“AUI is more than a university; it is a community with an amazing culture. Here, you are given the weapons to face the real world with,” said science and engineering graduate Ahmad Arjdane.

A dispute over control of a vast network of semi-private universities is starting to resemble a bitter custody battle, pitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against one of his political rivals,  Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, for control of the schools and the 1.5 million faculty members and students.

The parliament on Tuesday rejected legislation introduced by Ahmadinejad that would have given the government greater control over the Islamic Azad University system, dealing another blow to Ahmadinejad in his efforts to rein in the opposition movement that has taken root on many university campuses.

The measure would have challenged the status of the school's assets as a tax-exempt endowment and allowed Ahmadinejad to appoint a new dean and trustees.

Egyptian Education Minister Ahmed Zaki Badr has announced that certain Islamic religious teachings, which in some schools have inspired extremism, will be modified in the 2010-2011 school year.

"We have taken this step after we received complaints of deficiencies in religious curriculum taught in schools, as some of them incited extremism and violence," Minister Badr told reporters Monday. "Islam is a religion of forgiveness and love, and its curriculum should not include anything that could be misinterpreted to hate or violence."

In a press conference joined by Egypt's Grand Mufti, Ali Gomaa, the minister said that all changes will be approved and submitted in accordance between the Ministry of Education and Dar Al Ifta. Badr added that Christian Coptic curricula will by reviewed by Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, who will add his recommendations if they require similar altercations.

A politically charged uproar has erupted on the campus of a leafy university over the academic collaboration between a local Arab professor and two Israeli counterparts. 

In a town hall at the American University of Beirut  earlier this month, nearly 300 in the crowd castigated Sari Hanafi, a scholar and Palestinian activist, for his role as co-editor of the book, "The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories." 

Hanafi worked on the book with two Israeli scholars from Tel Aviv University, Adi Ophir and Michal Givoni, both of whom publicly oppose the Israeli military presence in the West Bank.

Lebanese law forbids contact between its nationals and Israel. The two countries remain technically at war. There's also an ongoing effort to isolate Israel called the Palestinian Academic Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which many AUB students and faculty support.

“This open collaboration between an Israeli academic and an AUB academic is unprecedented in my 50 years of service at this university," said Tarif Khalidi, professor of Arab and Middle Eastern studies at AUB, who addressed the audience at the March 8 meeting. "I say 'open' because God knows what might be happening under the table. This is especially disturbing in a country like Lebanon, which is still in a state of war with Israel."

 The clash of civilizations between the Islamic world and the West isn’t over -- it never began, according to a group of top-notch scholars gathered in Beirut last week.

The scholars from around the world convened at the American University of Beirut to discuss the future of engagement between the Islamic world and the West in a forum sponsored by the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center.

“It’s more appropriate to talk about a clash of ignorances,” said Ali Asani of Harvard University. “People tend to paint each other with one color, with one brush stroke, as simplistic caricatures in utter humiliation.”

A moderate cleric is in line to assume a powerful post in the Sunni Muslim world.

The sudden death of Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the top cleric at Al Azhar in Cairo, on Wednesday has prompted instant speculation on who will succeed him as head of the world's most influential Sunni Muslim institution.

Tantawi died of a heart attack at age 81 while on a short visit to Saudi Arabia, and Al Azhar insiders have suggested a number of clerics that might well fill the void left by his departure.

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, one of the main candidates in the running to land the top post, has gained a reputation of combining a powerful personality and firm stands with moderate opinions and calls for integrating Islam with liberal democracy.

 

In 11th grade history classes, Iranian high school students are required to read a textbook that devotes 100 pages to the history between the United States and Iran, citing 32 different sources painstakingly footnoted.

American high school history classes, by contrast, devote little if anything to the history of Iran, said Mohammad Marandi (above center), the head of North American studies at Tehran University, who was in Beirut recently for a conference. 

"History textbooks in the United States are very problematic when it comes to Iran and I would assume that the same is true with other regions of the world where the United States has issues," Marandi told a small crowd of scholars gathered from around the world at American University of Beirut.