Monitoring and evaluation the situation of Iran in higher education based on national policy documents

This paper seeks to improve the performance of Iran in higher education from 2013 to 2017 according to the indicators determined based on the country's comprehensive scientific plan and the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan. This is a descriptive-analytic study that was compiled and analyzed using UNESCO statistical data and the Center for Research and Planning in Higher Education in Iran. In some of the indices, Iran had a desirable function and in some, it had a poor performance. Indicators such as the gross enrollment rate, the share of graduate students, the share of associate students, the share of doctoral students, and the contribution of faculty members were close to the desired upon the policy documents. However, indicators like the number of basic science students, the total number of graduates, the number of faculty members in one million, the student-faculty ratio, the proportion of students to the full-time faculty of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, the ratio of students to staff Scientific full-time Ministry of Science and Technology, the number of foreign students, The number of universities and centers that ranked 10% in the global ranking, as well as the share of higher education expenditures on a gross domestic product by the government, were far from the amount approved by Iran policy documents, which needs more attention by policymakers. Furthermore, the findings of this study presented that the indices of the "System of Monitoring and Evaluation of Science, Technology, and Innovation of the country", presented by the Supreme Council of Science, Research and Technology need to be revised, regularly.