From Traditional Schools to Government Schools: Rereading the Practical and Theoretical Motivations of Schools in Qajar Period

The history of traditional schools in Iran is the history of those traditional educations that tended to stagnation and unchanging. However, in recent millennium, we were not confronted only with a single tradition but within religious and cultural trends there were various educational traditions that came into existence in the form of traditional schools, schools, and mosque-schools. Yet this tradition in confrontation with the modern world and the social requirements of Iran in Qajar period failed to resist anymore and lost their tranquility and as a result compelled to change their standpoint. Hence, this tradition once in confrontation with modern private schools and then in confrontation with modern government schools were compelled to make some negative decision or at times positive decision; a decision that first were meant to confront them, but later on led to a kind of submission. The present paper tries to review the history of the changes of educational system in Iran from traditional school to modern one, and unfold those ideas that underpinned the changes in educational system of Iran in Qajar period.