CHRONOLOGICAL EVALUATION OF IRAN’S TOP UNIVERSITIES FROM THE INPUT INDICATORS IN THE RECENT FIFTY YEARS

 In the era of knowledge, communities should be developed based on knowledge-based educational systems. In order to achieve the knowledge-based development, it is necessary to cross the path of higher education. It imposes a requirement for a widespread wave of universities and higher education institutions on the agenda of different countries, but at the same time as globalization and the increasing importance of “world-class universities”, the balance of quantitative and qualitative development has been a fundamental challenge, especially in the higher education sector of developing countries. Accordingly, in this paper, the evaluation of the quantitative and qualitative performance of a number of Iranian universities, classified based on the “logistics plan of Iran higher education”, has been investigated in terms of inputs by using the documentary studies. Six main criteria consisting of two quantitative criteria and four qualitative ones have been selected and the changes in these criteria has been analyzed during the period of recent fifty years. The results show that the trend of changes in the quantitative criteria has been improved almost for all the selected universities, although there were some fluctuations. Also the trend of qualitative criteria in the first and third decade after Islamic revolution has been progressed. In the second decade after revolution, due to the special circumstances in the country, almost all criteria have fallen seriously.