There is this account of strict gender-separation:
Mohabat News -- In line with its policy of introducing gender-segregation to every social enviromement, the Iranian government has banned men and women from using educational facilities at the same time. Men will be permitted access on some days and women on others. The directive applis in particular to libraries and research institutes.
According to Shahrzad News, based on a report by Fars news agency, non-governmental schools head Fereshte Heshmatian confirmed that the decision had been made at the 67th meeting of the Council for Monitoring Non-Governmental Schools, in keeping with the policy of promoting citizens' involvement in administering education. "A directive has been sent to all provincial education authorities, stressing that members of the opposite sex must not even face one another in such environments ."
I covered this in my first book, highlighting how gender separation impacts the pursuit of truth:
[M]ale-female differences had very important effects on the history of educational institutions in the life of the Church. After the fall of the Roman Empire, monasticism was the quiet force that restored order to Europe. One element that grew from this was a system of education built on monastic and later cathedral schools, which evolved slowly into a very structured way of passing along a sophisticated body of knowledge. Young boys who showed academic promise were sent to the monks to be educated, and girls whose families had the money and the inclination sent them to convents to be taught. For centuries, the Church was guardian and dispenser of the only education available, and it integrated a variety of disciplines—rudimentary science, rhetoric, logic, and elementary math—with a Christian world view. In a simple and straightforward way, contemplative reflection was combined with intellectual inquiry, giving students a well-rounded education.
As the Middle Ages progressed, the academic disciplines became more sophisticated and the teachers formed guilds—just as other workers of the age did. There was great pride in one’s profession, and teachers were just as inclined to show marks of distinction and to look out for one another in a Christian and brotherly way. Cathedral schools competed for honors, fought for the better students, and evolved into the universities that we recognize even until today. There should be a great sense of satisfaction in the part that the Church played in seeking out knowledge of the world and making education available to a widespread portion of the population.
Two rifts grew in the universities that would prove to have great negative consequences on the integrated knowledge that had served the Church and the world so well. There was eventually a split in academia between theology and philosophy, which ultimately mandated that students choose between one and the other as a primary discipline. This breach was so pronounced that by the end of the thirteenth century, the University of Paris mandated that theological topics not be even discussed by those who taught philosophy.1 Clearly, the integration that had served education so well was being overcome by compartmentalization, as the universities drifted from their contemplative roots.
The second rift happened at roughly the same time when women were finally refused access to the universities. This was not so much an objective indictment of women as students but a shift in the way that men saw the academy. True to the spirit of the age, the guilds had evolved into chivalric outposts and the ecclesial ranks reflected the orders of the knights that fought for truth and order in the secular world. Thus, the universities barred those students and masters who were not a part of the clergy.
Concretely, then, by the end of the thirteenth century, both the feminine presence within the student body was gone from academia and the spiritual motherhood of the Church was severely constrained. The effect was twofold and wholly negative in the long run. Primarily, women, who had built many of their abbeys into powerful learning establishments, no longer had access to the best formation. At that time, Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess, was the most renowned female academic and her fields of expertise were many. There were other women as well—a long and impressive list—who worked side by side with men in the scriptoria reproducing religious texts, were enrolled in the universities, and wrote treatises on a wealth of subjects. This collaboration now—school by school—came to a crashing halt.
The second effect was more subtle but every bit as harmful to the field of learning. Not only did women no longer have the benefit of the best of education, but the schools no longer benefited by the presence of women and their integrated way of thinking. What women brought to academia then—and still do—is “the living experience of the truths of faith,”1 What followed, sadly, over the years, was a disintegration on many levels...
1 See Francis Martin, The Feminist Question, p. 49
1 Martin, p. 49
[from The Authentic Catholic Woman, Chapter 6, "The Church as Teacher"]