An Analysis about the Necessity of the Existence of Bachelor Education in Universities of Iran

Subject Areas : architecture

Hossein Bahrainy ¹ , Elham Fallah Manshadi ²

1 - Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Department of Urban Planning, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Iran.
2 - Ph. D. of Urban Planning, Department of Urban Planning, College of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2014-10-01 Accepted : 2015-10-04 Published : 2016-08-22

Keywords:

Abstract :

While there are crucial debates about urban planning education - whether to have both undergraduate and graduatelevels, or only graduate level education, 70 percent of urban planning students in Iran studied in undergraduatelevel. There are different ideas in this issue. Some believe that urban planning education should be presented justat the graduate level. Some, on the other hand, accept the interrelationship of urban planning decision-making onother disciplines, but emphasize on the abilities of the planner with undergraduate education and also the possibilityof getting into urban planning field at the age of 18-19. Some experts focus on the importance of urban planningat the undergraduate level since 1991 and believe that undergraduate education of urban planning become soimportant because of financial problems.Main question in this paper is: “could there be and any justification for the undergraduate education in urbanplanning in Iran, or not”? Questioners and interview methods were used to collect the required information. A totalof 187 questionnaires were filled by planning directors and instructors, lectures and graduates of eleven universitiesthroughout the country. In addition 12 depth interview has been done by famous planners in Iran. We asked themabout the necessity of undergraduate level of urban planning and role of this level graduates in society.The study results show 87.2 percent of respondents think that undergraduate education is necessary in urbanplanning in Iran. The result of the interviews also shows the same idea. They noted to some reasons like independentidentity for urban planning, society need, expanding urban challenges and lack of professional people and experts,infusion of holistic view from 18 years old, good effects of graduates, short time for familiarity with urban issues ingradate level (2 year), introduction for choosing future branch, preparing urban experts of governance and otherorganizations. People who were against undergraduate level stated some reasons like interdisciplinary identity ofurban planning, unmeaning less subjects and contents, overlapping between undergraduate and graduate lessons.Based on this research undergraduate level is necessary for urban planning in Iran because of professional andacademic reasons. It is expected that urban planners with Bachelor degree more deal with urban topics with smallerscale and less complexity (such as the comprehensive plan of rural and small towns) and participation in gatheringdata and describing the status quo in the urban development plan for different scale. The key point is revising ineducational content in graduate level and focusing on make it more proficiency and analytical.The remarkable thing is increasing in the number of undergraduate students in urban planning especially in somekind of universities like Islamic Azad, Payamenoor and nonprofit University. Because of the weakness of the ratioof the number of students to lecture in this kind of university, the subject would be a serious problem in urbanplanning. In addition, this increasing is not based on the market demand and it could lead to a lot of problems forgraduates of Bachelor's in urban development.... Key words: Urban Planning Education, Undergraduate, Graduate, Justification, Iran.

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