Tehran, Sept 30, IRNA -- The English-Language `Iran News' on Monday focused on the speech of President Mohammad Khatami on the start of another academic year which reminded the academia that universities will always be a rockbed of political thought and activity.

"Hopefully universities will always remain a hotbed of political thought and activity. Apolitical universities are unhealthy, which resemble a disease that should be treated," the president was quoted as saying.

The president is said to have lamented the lack of a discernible class of progressive elites and intellectuals in the country. Thus, he said, "universities have acted as a substitute where students and academics have filled the void by voicing their beliefs and in effect becoming the intellectual/elite class in our society."

He looked back to the years before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, particularly in the 1960s and 70s, when "Iranian universities were a volcano of political and militant activities."

However, "after the revolution, political activities in colleges and universities ran into some major problems and were at times discouraged by the post-revolutionary Iranian government."

Today, the student population in Iranian universities has increased by 10 times the 120,000 figure in 1979, Iran News pointed out. Moreover, it said the gender make-up has changed, 60 percent of the college population now being female.

It said students are either non-political or do not get their political stances heard. "In effect, most college age students in Iran do not have a political voice within their universities and have been forced to look beyond their campuses as far as politics is concerned."

The president, in his speech, further made a distinction between "being merely a political student and being a trailblazer in progressive, liberal and reform-minded ideas and philosophies."

He stressed that it is wrong to blindly follow a political ideology without asking perceptive questions to justify continued acceptance.

The editorial concluded by acknowledging that "most university students in Iran are despondent and simply do not care about political developments in our domestic political scene."