A Comparative Study of Non-formal Education Courses in Higher Education

Objective:
The leading universities in the have realized this for years. The implicit and explicit goals of universities will be achieved when non-formal education is placed next to formal education and the weaknesses of formal education are covered by non-formal education. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to compare the non-formal education courses in Iran's higher education with the international leading universities.
Materials and methods:
The method of this research is qualitative with the comparative approach of John Stuart Mill's model. Collecting information, analyzing documents available on the university website and related articles. The statistical population of the current research is all universities that implement non-formal education. The logic governing John Stuart Mill's method of agreement and difference is that whenever two or more examples of a phenomenon under investigation share only one causal factor; Then that causal factor will be the cause of the investigated phenomenon, and when two or more samples from several possible causal factors are different from each other Then the causal factor in which all samples differ will be the cause of the investigated phenomenon. Therefore, the statistical samples of this research are the leading universities that have been introduced in the field of education according to the latest ranking of prestigious global institutions, in the international the universities of of Massachusetts, Harvard, Stanford, College (London), Koç (Turkey) and Natinang Institute of Technology (Singapore), that were chosen according to the latest rankings done by the world's most prestigious institutions, and also a sample of Iranian universities including Tehran University, Shahid Beheshti University, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Sharif University of Technology, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences. these universities were purposefully selected according to access to existing documents and documents, which are common in non-formal education.
Discussion and conclusion:
In the non-formal education goals, selected universities of the international seek to maximize people's knowledge and awareness in their personal and professional lives. They also consider informal education as a supplement to minimize the problems of the formal education system. In the selected universities of Iran, the general goal of this type of education is to acquire entrepreneurship, job skills and earn university income. In attracting the audience, the universities of the world are taking more steps towards attracting international learners so that they can establish their place in the world. If domestic universities have not planned a special program for attracting international students in the informal education section, and their target audience is adults inside the country. In the part of needs assessment, selected universities of the world use people, stakeholders, stakeholders and the conditions of the society. If the selected universities of the country pay more attention to the opinions of employers, market conditions and the opinions of university officials. Non-formal education courses in Iran are mostly about career issues, empowering people and learning a second language. If the courses in the world's universities pay special attention to environmental issues and life skills in addition to job issues and empowering people. The way of conducting the courses in all the selected universities of the international and in Iran is in a combined form (face-to-face and non-face-to-face), but the difference here is that in the universities of the world, the learning platform is in various programs such as group trips, scientific visits, interactive workshops, seminars and training. Peers are provided. And in Iran, learning is in the form of face-to-face classes, online, seminars, and workshops, among which interactive learning plays a minor role. Teaching in all selected countries is done by experienced professors and experts in the subjects of the courses. In the evaluation department, selected universities of the international benefit more from coherent and integrated internal evaluation, although they also use external evaluation (opinion of other organizations and universities). In Iran, internal evaluation is done, but it is not integrated, and this does not provide appropriate information in correcting or deleting the course. Acquiring specialized (occupational) and general (environmental and life skills), consequences of informal education in universities. is the world In the universities of the country, the results are more concentrated in the job empowerment of the applicants (specialized skills).