Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 PhD Student in Private Law, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 PhD in Private Law - Retired Assistant Professor, University of Judicial Sciences
3 PhD in Criminal Law - Associate Professor, University of Judicial Sciences
Abstract
Keywords
Article Title [Persian]
Authors [Persian]
تجاری سازی آموزش در کشورهای مختلف دنیا روندی صعودی دارد با این وجود هنوز بسیاری از ابعاد آن ناشناخته مانده است. یکی از چالش ها ، جایگاه کسب وکار آموزشی در قوانین تجاری بویژه در موقعیت های دشوار اقتصادی همچون توقف فعالیت است. هدف مقاله حاضر ، تحلیل بازسازی فعالیت های آموزشی با تاکید بر قانون تجارت در ایران ، فرانسه و ایالات متحده امریکا از دیدگاه تطبیقی است. بر این اساس ، روش تحقیق ، تطبیقی تحلیلی و روش جمع آوری داده ها ، بررسی اسنادی می باشد. روش تحلیل داده ها ، رویکرد توصیفی – تحلیلی با توجه به تقسیم بندی تسین و آدامز است. یافته های تحقیق حاضر نشان می دهد که کسب وکار آموزشی در ایران از لحاظ تعیین جایگاه قانونی در حقوق تجارت دچار خلاهای قانونی متعددی است. یافته دیگر تحقیق مبین آن است که بین وزارت خانه ها و سازمان های مختلف ایران در خصوص ماهیت فعالیت آموزشی به عنوان یک نوع تجارت اختلاف نظر وجود دارد. بدین ترتیب وزارتخانه های مختلف برای تصمیم گیری در خصوص مسائل گوناگونی همچون ورشکستگی ، توقف و بازسازی کسب و کار آموزشی با یکدیگر اختلاف نظر داشته و از قوانین متفاوتی پیروی می کنند. علاوه بر این ، یافته های تحقیق مبین شباهت ها و تفاوت هایی بین ایران با فرانسه و امریکا در خصوص حقوق تجارت آموزشی است . وجه مشترک سه کشور ، توجه قانونگذار به تداوم فعالیت کسب وکار بعد از ورشکستکی با اولویت سرمایه گذار اصلی است. عمده ترین تفاوت در ارجاع مکرر قانون تجارت ایران به قانون مدنی- برای حل و فصل دعاوی بین افراد ذینفع –است . با عنایت به این یافته ها ، به قانونگذاران ایران تهیه و تصویب قانون تجارت آموزشی - مستقل از قانون تجارت و قانون مدنی - پیشنهاد می گردد.
Keywords [Persian]
The entry of private sector in the field of educational activities during last hundred years in Iran has experienced many ups and downs. Before fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in late 1970s, there were a small number of private schools and institutions for education of children and youth (Ghasemi Pouya, 2004; Jafari, 2010). After change of political regime of Iran to the Islamic Republic, Article 30 of the Constitution explicitly stated that education is free for all Iranians until end of high school. Despite four decades, this law has not changed, while growth of non-governmental schools and centers has been on the rise, with about 12 percent currently studying in private schools (slightly more than a million pupils) (Zinivand, 2019a). These students attend more than 16,000 non-governmental schools (Zinivand, 2020). However, there are no accurate statistics on private schools and centers for teaching subjects such as foreign languages, mathematics, sciences, and university entrance examination classes.
Also, all these schools and centers are engaged in educational activities by obtaining legal licenses from the Deputy of Public Participation of the Ministry of Education (Non-Governmental Schools Support and Development Office, 2009). In this way, investors attract students by establishment of private schools or centers and through advertising and receive money from parents. In addition, according to the Deputy Minister of Education, the founders of these schools and private centers employed more than 200,000 people as teachers and employees - full or part time - to use their services and pay salaries to them (Zinivand, 2019b ). From the economic and financial point of view, it should be noted that the Non-governmental Schools Organization has announced that the tuition of these schools in Tehran and in 2019 was at least 9 million ($US415) and at most 15 million Tomans ($US692) per year and the minimum tuition in other provinces was 3 million Tomans ($US140). Therefore, if we consider the average tuition of these schools as 6 million Tomans (nearly $US280), the parents pay about 9 thousand and 660 billion Tomans (nearly $US45000000), of tuition to these schools annually (Shokrani, 2019). This huge turnover simply shows that we are dealing with an educational business that requires existence and approval of a business rules and regulations for all stakeholders. Also, like any other business, there must be certain laws about unusual situations - such as stop of activities or bankruptcy.
Emphasizing on unusual business situation in the field of educational activities for investors in a country like Iran - which has been under constant pressure from economic sanctions over the past four decades due to political problems - is quite normal. In fact, while a non-governmental school seems to be making a huge profit for its owners, in recent years, the favorable growth of the situation of these schools has declined; in a way that some of them are on the bankruptcy line (Tehranian, 2018). In a simple estimate, many non-governmental schools have seen a decline in the number of students and dropped out of school due to high tuition fees. This has kept some non-governmental school founders in a difficult position to continue their work or close it. This is mainly because of sharp decline in income, rising costs, and especially high rent of buildings, the financial pressure on them has doubled. For this reason, in the last two decades, some founders have been forced to close schools and declare bankruptcy due to financial problems (Madandar Arani, 2014 a, b; Madandar Arani, Kakia, and Moazani, 2014; Haji Mirzaei, 2020a; Mirzadeh, 2019). Naturally, this raises fundamental questions for researchers. For example, how are issues such as bankruptcy, investor interests, stakeholder rights, and reconstruction of educational activity considered as a business activity from a legal perspective; are educational activities considered as a business in Iranian commercial law? Has a special commercial law for educational business activities been approved by the Iranian legislature, and what are experiences of other countries on issues such as reconstruction or bankruptcy of educational activities? According to this introduction, the main purpose of the present study is to analyze reconstruction of educational activities with emphasis on commercial law in Iran and selected countries from a comparative perspectives. The sub-objectives of the research are:
<