Azerbaijan, Baku, September 16 /Trend N. Umid/
Iranian starred students have been permitted to return to university, caretaker of the Iranian Science, Research and Technology Ministry, Jafar Tofighi said, Mehr news agency reported.
He went on to note that a special committee on reviewing starred and excluded student cases has been established at the ministry.
Starring students was a punitive action, whereby the Central Selection Committee divided the students into those 'allowed to enrol' and 'one-two-or three-starred', applicants, for whom the committee has limited or barred from enrolment.
In September 2006, a year after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election as president, a public controversy arose over allegations by some students that the Ministry of Science was depriving qualified applicants of admission to graduate and post-graduate studies on political, ideological and religious grounds.
That month, a number of students held a series of protests in front of the Sanjesh Organisation (academic measurement bureau), Parliament and the Ministry of Science, alleging that despite having passed university entrance examinations, government authorities in charge of university admissions at the Sanjesh Organisation had refused to enrol them and that stars printed next to their names on their transcripts indicated they had been singled out for denial of admission.
These students, most of whom were applicants for graduate and post-graduate programmes, alleged that during the selection process, the Central Selection Committee marked their exam transcripts with stars signalling different levels of exclusion from university programmes.