A pattern for innovation diffusion in the Iranian education system

This is the age of permanent and immediate change in different aspects of human life. These changes have consequences for education and the education system needs innovation and change in order to be consistent with these transformations and facing their challenges. Therefore researches, studies, and projects are done that search for ways and strategies to modify the learning environment and to improve the performance of the education system. The specialists and policy makers mainly attend to the technical adaptation of innovations with today's knowledge. In other words, they try to fit the ways and strategies – designed technically and scientifically well - with the needs and problems. This effort is valuable in itself; however, it is not the entire job. What is neglected and less attended is the social adaptation of innovations; i.e., the way of establishing the innovative projects in the body of education system and their entry in the school and class. In other words, the “how” of diffusion and successful dissemination of an innovation is important, because this is at a higher level of technical adaptation of innovation and on this basis it is more or less neglected in our education system, up till today. The examination of change in the Iranian education system shows mostly that, the social adaptation of innovations with reconstruction and modification of the country's education system has not been considered at all and most of the innovations are imposed on the body of the education system according to circular letters and orders. It is as if innovation is a piece of mechanical set that is easily changed with the worn out piece. Therefore, most of the time its degree of success in terms of entry to schools, classes and the students’ teaching-learning process is little and sometimes a failure. On the other hand, the innovative projects are designed scientifically and technically well or at least tried to be so according to the experts.Dealing with the social adaptation of innovations, this paper presents a pattern for the diffusion of innovations in the education system in Iran. This pattern, which is a demand-based one and attending to the social condition of dissemination of innovations and presenting the criteria and conditions for their execution at school, establishes the base for the acceptance and execution of innovations on group decisions at school that involve the following stages:•producing innovation•modifying and fitting•dissemination and informing•acceptance, preparation of schools and demand•investigating the school demand•supporting the schools that want innovation•feedback and modification