IRNA � The literacy rate of foreign nationals living in Iran has reached to 65 percent from the previous six percent, said the head of the literacy Movement Organization of Iran in Zahedan, southeastern Iran, on Thursday.

'Between 25,000 to 27,000 foreign national grownups are schooled in Iran each year,' said Ali Baqerzadeh.

There are more than three million legal and illegal Afghan refugees living in Iran, of whom 430,000 go to school and about 25,000 to university.

Based on the Islamic teachings, Iran has a supportive view on education, thus, practices no discrimination in the field. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a decree to register illegal Afghan children and teenagers in Iranian state-run schools.

This year, seven Afghans ranked very high on the masters degree entrance exams: one Afghan student ranked first, two ranked third, one came sixth, and two ranked between 50 and 60, most of whom were born and schooled in Iran.

Regarding the literacy rate in Iran, Baqerzadeh said that the literacy rate in Iran is about 95.5 percet of the country's population.

He added that every year about 700,000 Iranian adults take classes for literacy, 250,000 of whom are zero beginners.