Iran spends about 20 trillion rials (nearly $477 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) every year on the education of foreign national students residing in the country, head of the international affairs department of the Ministry of Education has said.

Over 558,000 foreign national children are receiving education in Iran completely free of charge, 474,000 of whom are Afghan children, ISNA quoted Gholamreza Karimi as saying on Wednesday.

Karimi said that there are currently about 137,000 undocumented Afghan students in the country, adding that their parents do not have valid residency documents, “but we have provided the conditions for enrolling them in schools.”

A number of foreign nationals from neighboring countries came to Iran over the past four decades due to numerous regional crises and civil wars, he lamented.

A decree was issued by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in May 2015, which allows all foreign nationals, even those who have no identification and are living in Iran illegally, to attend schools in the country./T.T/