Along with the Medical Center and the Nursing School, the Nemazee Vocational School brings a more general educational mission to Shiraz. With Iran in dire need of technically skilled laborers during the 1950s, the Iran Foundation saw an opportunity to deliver valuable opportunities to the area’s youth. With the concurrent construction of the Hospital, the Nursing School, and the completion of the Water Works, Shiraz was well positioned to support even greater numbers of students.
As part of the Iran Foundation’s overall efforts to improve education in the city of Shiraz, Mohamed Nemazee (pictured at left) drew inspiration from his father, who had been involved with a local school for boys, and had indicated interest in transforming it to better meet the needs of the modern world.
An excerpt from the Iran Foundation’s 1955 report on the Vocational School explains the senior Nemazee’s involvement in the initial steps of this project:
“This institution had been opened some years earlier as the Nemazee School for Boys, offering a general education for boys in the upper primary and secondary school levels and enjoying an excellent local reputation. Mr. Nemazee had become interested in reorienting the school toward a program of shop work and trade training and was willing to spend additional sums for this purpose.”
When taken together with Nemazee Hospital and the Nursing School, the Vocational School became an essential part of the foundation of Shiraz; so much so that when the Shah of Iran commissioned a study in 1960 to determine the best location for a world class university system, the city was selected over Tehran. Shiraz University was founded, and became the most advanced and Westernized academic institution in the Middle East.