THE TELEGRAPH: Iranian youths can attend courtship classes and earn a diploma before tying the knot as part of a newly introduced government scheme to cut the divorce rate.
The National Youth Organisation has unveiled an online course to educate the Islamic republic's overwhelmingly young population on how to find Mr or Mrs Right, pop the question and live happily ever after.
Interactive and lasting three months, the course designed by academics and clerics requires pupils seeking the diploma to sit for weekly tests.
Iran's hardline leaders condemn dating and relationships out of wedlock and like to see men and women married off ideally in their early 20s in a country where traditionalists frown upon singles in their 30s.
But according to official estimates, the average age of marriage has risen to 29, mainly due to economic hardship and a change in priorities and values, especially for women who outnumber men at college.
Since rising to power five years ago, conservatives in the parliament and the government have made a mantra of "facilitating marriage for young people" in Iran, where about 60 per cent of the 70 million population is under 30.
The concept of a "marriage diploma" has already unleashed a torrent of jokes on the internet, but officials insist that Iranians need awareness without revealing much about the content of the course.
"Marriage needs hundreds of hours of education," said Mehrdad Bazrpash, a deputy to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and head of the National Youth Organisation, as he inaugurated the programme in Tehran on Saturday.
Ahmad Borjali, a psychologist and adviser to the initiative, said that the divorce rate has gone up steadily since 2006, rising by 15.7 per cent in 2009 compared with the previous year, against a 2.1 per cent increase in marriages.
One in every four marriages ends in divorce in Tehran alone, he said, citing research by social workers as blaming "sexual" and "communication troubles" among main reasons for the problem nationwide. >>> Hiedeh Farmani, in Tehran for AFP | Monday, March 15, 2010
