On Teachers’ Day, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran usually boasts that academics are “the architects of Iran’s future.”
In Ali Khamenei’s myopic worldview, this future doubtless signifies that right now’s Iranian youth will stick with it the torch of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the tenets of political Islam.
But the rulers’ decades-long efforts to indoctrinate and mould a technology of post-revolutionary Iranians by means of the training system and dozens of state and spiritual propaganda organizations have failed, tarnishing the Islamic Republic’s legacy.
Iran has seen nice change over the previous decade, from widespread secularization to a resolutely anti-regime and protest motion amongst its individuals, and within the course of, it’s clear that its individuals have turned their backs on the aspirations of each supreme leaders.
Today’s younger persons are usually dwelling double lives, fully disconnected from the state and experiencing widespread repression in faculties and universities whereas encountering contrasting tales of pre-revolutionary life at residence. Despite the clampdown on web entry throughout the protests, Generation Z has discovered a window into Western life, solidifying their rejection of on a regular basis actuality.
But Khamenei can’t take all of the credit score for this refusal: in spite of everything, he’s solely the second supreme chief, his predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini, who additionally tried to power his worldview on Iran’s youth by means of the college curriculum.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves throughout a gathering with academics in Tehran, Iran, May 1, 2024.
But Khamenei is unlikely to again down from his efforts. In latest days, his administration’s training officers have hinted at a number of reforms that sign better management over what’s taught to youngsters and college students.
Here’s a quick have a look at what it’s worthwhile to know concerning the Islamic Republic of Iran’s makes an attempt to coach future Iranian generations by means of faculties and universities, and the way its aim of building Iran as a profitable instance of political Islam has failed.
Islamic “revolutionary” reform of Iran’s training system
Let’s cease for a second.
Following the 1979 revolution, which noticed the ouster of Iran’s monarch, King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s universities have been closed for a time frame with a view to fully restructure the nation’s training system in accordance with the brand new authorities’s ideological framework.
Literature textbooks start with songs and slogans of the Islamic Revolution, and as a substitute of studying the works of the good Persian poets, younger youngsters be taught songs like “Khomeini, Khomeini, you’re a gentle from God” and “This American emperor needs to be executed.”
Under what could possibly be described as revisionist directives, historical past textbooks have been rewritten to advertise Islamic ideas and so-called revolutionary values, with virtually no point out of Persia’s historical kings.
The Islamic Republic’s first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, noticed early on the potential of the training system to perpetuate the beliefs expressed with the delivery of Islam 14 centuries in the past.
In distinction, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s “White Revolution” of the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies sought to modernize Iran by means of measures that included advances in training, resembling sending academics to villages that didn’t have faculties. The training system was secular and based mostly largely on European fashions, however college students spent one hour every week studying concerning the White Revolution and modernization.
Schools below siege from radical indoctrination and political Islam
Several research have proven that over the previous few a long time, Iran’s faculty curriculum for grades 1 to 12 has promoted the indoctrination of extremist ideologies.
“Gender discrimination permeates Iranian textbooks; girls are given little significance as people and their contributions to society outdoors the house are largely ignored. This angle in the direction of girls is justified within the textbooks by means of quite a few references to the Quran and the lives of prophets and imams,” wrote an intensive Freedom House examine by Saeed Payvandi.
The textbooks advocate for the destruction of Israel and glorify baby martyrdom and jihad, whereas inciting hostility towards the U.S. School supplies additionally fetishize the Iranian empire’s previous and promote false narratives in historical past textbooks.
“Iran continues to teach college students primarily about the potential for a world struggle and the unfold of the Islamic Khomeinist revolution. Compared to previous curricula, there may be an elevated emphasis on Iran’s need to export its international Islamic revolution to the Arab Middle East, and college students are inspired to participate in radical actions to attain Iranian hegemony,” stated the IMPACT-se examine, which assessed Iranian faculty supplies in opposition to UNESCO’s standards for peace and tolerance.
Today, the regime continues its plan to forcibly indoctrinate Iranian youth with political Islam, as evidenced by the rising affect of clerics and mosques in Iran’s training system, significantly by means of the recruitment of clerics as academics and the institution of mosque-centered madrasah faculties.
In line with Khamenei’s anti-Western stance, measures have included banning English language examine for main faculty college students and scrapping the English language requirement for older college students, although training officers say Arabic will stay obligatory for first and second graders in center faculty “because the language of the Quran.”
Some universities have painted Israeli and American flags at their entrances, a regime tactic to get college students to stroll over the flags as an indication of disrespect, however social media movies usually present Iranian college students making warning to not stroll over the flags, highlighting their resistance and the failure of Khamenei’s insurance policies.
Schools and universities are battlegrounds for the federal government
Since 1979, faculties and universities have emerged as centres of unrest and opposition to the regime.
From outstanding activist Majid Tavakoli’s historic speech in 2009, during which he courageously and instantly attacked Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on the steps of Amir Kabir University on Students’ Day, to Iranian schoolgirls in 2022 ripping photographs of Khomeini and Khamenei from their textbooks and shouting “Death to the dictator,” younger individuals have been taking a stand in opposition to regime dogma.
Tens of hundreds of individuals have been arrested throughout the protests, together with at the least tons of of scholars, academics and professors.
The authorities continues to make use of stress and techniques to focus on academics who participated within the demonstrations, together with arrests, intimidation, expulsion and compelled retirement.
Regime crackdown targets Iranian schoolgirls
The ladies’ faculty has been a selected centre of unrest because the September 2022 homicide of Mahsa Zina Amini whereas she was being held by the so-called morality police for violating the sporting of the hijab.
Thousands of schoolgirls have reportedly been poisoned throughout and after the protests, with human rights activists and Iranian journalists accusing the Tehran regime of unleashing “one more type of gender-based assaults within the nation.” Activists have additionally instructed the assaults are in retaliation for college students participating in nationwide protests.
Supporting this declare are the truth that it took three months for Khamenei to touch upon the assault and that no arrests have been made in reference to the reported poisoning.
Last yr, IranWire solely reported that Iranian schoolgirls have been being pressured to look at pornographic movies at college in an try to forestall them from participating in anti-government protests.
The rallies, performed by regime safety forces, used specific content material and claimed that the protesters’ calls for amounted to ethical decadence.
“Clerics accompanied by girls sporting hijabs and males in uniform and plain garments visited the college and gathered college students in grades 10, 11 and 12 into school rooms. The guests pressured the scholars to look at movies with pornographic scenes, together with rape and human-animal intercourse, and tried to persuade them that the protesters’ calls for would result in the sexual decadence of Iran,” the report stated.
The incident induced nice emotional misery to the scholars, with one pupil struggling a nervous breakdown and being hospitalized for 2 days.
Universities on the coronary heart of the administration’s international coverage technique
Iranian universities have performed a key function within the Islamic Republic’s international coverage technique, which incorporates recruiting international college students as ideological ambassadors. These college students, usually from influential households, are skilled to advertise Iranian insurance policies globally below the guise of “secretaries of tradition.”
Iran’s Al-Mustafa International University performs a key function on this technique, receiving heavy funding to teach international college students and promote the Iranian regime’s Shiite ideology around the globe. The college has college students from China, African nations and Latin America. The college has been topic to worldwide sanctions for allegedly recruiting fighters for the Syrian struggle and different conflicts.
For instance, Tehran’s Sharif University can also be topic to worldwide monetary sanctions and is thought for its shut ties to the army, engaged on army and ballistic missile-related tasks for the Iranian authorities.
Iranian academics face hostility and a collapsing training system
While the supreme chief speaks of respecting the function of the nation’s academics, academics themselves face hostility from the regime.
Their work is hampered by extraordinarily low wages and poor working and dwelling circumstances, and they’re as a substitute comforted by unfulfilled guarantees.
Teachers report that college students are rejecting the obligatory curriculum, which has a big quantity of ideological and spiritual content material, even inside science topics, which they are saying has led to a big drop in pupil curiosity.
Regime safety forces additionally incessantly assault dad or mum conferences that specific concern about severe high quality deficiencies within the nation’s training system, together with a scarcity of educating workers.