Muslim Scholars Capable of Standing Up to Bullying Powers

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian Science Minister Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi stressed that Muslim scientists and scholars can easily stand up to those powers which bully the world due to their grip on science and technology.

Speaking in a meeting with Syrian Minister of Higher Education Ghiath Barakat here in Tehran on Saturday, Zahedi said that Iran, in compliance with its 20-year vision plan, is striving to shift from the present natural resources-dependent to a human resources-based economy.

He further pointed to Iran’s higher education status, and mentioned, “According to the first 20-year development plan of our country, we should increase the number of our university students to 3.7 million in the next three years. That is to say, Iran’s higher education should cover 30% of the Iranian youth ranging from 18 to 24 years of age. Meantime, our professor/student ratio ought to be 1:17 before the end of the present five-year development plan (i.e. before 2009).”

Zahedi also pointed to the formation of the High Council of Research and Technology, development of Science and Technology Parks and the launch of operation by the ISC, a center where the scientific documents of Iran and the Muslim world are collected, reminding that the aforementioned measures constitute part of the Islamic Republic’s push towards ranking first in the field of science and technology in the region.

For his part, Syrian Minister of Higher Education Ghiath Barakat stressed the need to deepen and develop the two countries’ scientific relations, and said that both Iran and Syria are in desperate need of expanding their scientific ties, as the two states are facing great challenges imposed on them by the world powers.

“We must encounter the challenges that the big powers impose on us through scientific cooperation, because it would be merely under such cases that we can adopt strong political stances against the said powers,” he continued.

The Syrian official also voiced his country’s preparedness to expand scientific cooperation with Iran.

Further in the meeting, the two sides decided to form four working groups in areas of education, research, technology, and Persian and Arabic languages to study the existing possibilities for the two countries increased cooperation in science and technology.

The four groups are due to present a Wednesday meeting of the two science ministers with the results of their surveys and discussions.