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“This is a caption”Nasim Roshanayi

Breeze of Brightness

The Islamic Republic introduced and established itself with the discourse of “the revolution of the oppressed”. A government in which education was supposed to be free. The third principle of the Constitution emphasizes free education, physical education, and the facilitation and expansion of higher education at all levels. Additionally, in the 30th principle of the Constitution, it states: “The government is obligated to provide free educational resources for all people until the end of secondary education and to expand higher education resources to the extent of the country’s self-sufficiency.” Where do the oppressed fit in the privatization of universities?

Privatization in the service of government entrepreneurship.

During the presidency of Rafsanjani after the Iran-Iraq war, neoliberalism was injected into the structural adjustment policies of the Islamic Republic’s economy. The Rafsanjani government attempted to revive the war-torn economy of Iran by liberalizing and making the market more competitive. As a result, privatization was introduced in a disguised form into the Iranian economic system. This disguised privatization was implemented in the market, meaning that the market was not completely free, but rather an opportunity for different factions of the government and their affiliates to become the main players in the private sector and profit from it. The situation was similar in the field of higher education.

The government, claiming that it did not have the financial capacity to expand higher education for all people, established private universities, Payam-e Noor University, evening universities, international campuses, non-profit and applied science universities since the 1990s. In this way, the government welcomed the private sector and became the main player in the private sector by establishing Payam-e Noor University and evening courses. Also, since the issuance of licenses for private higher education centers, individuals went to those centers who were either government officials or were related to and acquaintances of government officials.

After the Rafsanjani government, privatization policies continued to expand in the following decades. Gradually, the amount of free higher education decreased and laws were passed to monetize government services in this sector; services such as reducing government financial support for welfare services for students, such as dormitories, reducing the duration of free education in daily courses at public universities through the “Sanavat Law”, renting out public spaces in universities for the university’s profit in a situation where students have no space for political activities, transferring university assets to contractors, and as a result, decreasing the quality of student meals and creating expensive restaurants with lower quality food.

Winner – Loser Maker

Competition is the main essence of privatization. The field of competition produces winners and losers. The logic of competitive privatization applies to higher education. The government, its officials, and their affiliates are winners in this field, while the losers belong to the upper and marginalized classes.

The government has claimed from the beginning that the privatization of universities is for the benefit of families who cannot afford university tuition. However, some research has shown that in fact, those with better economic conditions are the ones who enter free government universities; because this group has access to facilities that prepare them for the national entrance exam, such as studying in non-profit schools, private classes, preparatory classes, etc. Ultimately, those who choose private universities are often from poorer families; because their families are unable to provide them with the necessary academic conditions to equip them for admission to government universities.

On the other hand, the high tuition fees of private universities force many students from lower income families to work alongside their studies. In February 2017, the newspaper “Shahrvand” published a report titled “Studying on the Condition of Working”. This report discusses “working students” who are forced to work while studying, and as a result, some are unable to pass their courses on time. The effort to cover the cost of education by compromising the quality of learning and prolonging the duration of their studies leads to these students being unable to continue their education. Some of them are even forced to drop out.

In this way, the privatization of universities has deepened the class divide. While if higher education were free and equally accessible to all classes and social groups, students from lower classes and marginalized groups would also have the opportunity to obtain higher education and access income-generating jobs. This ultimately leads to breaking the cycle of poverty for them.

Private universities, aiding in the suppression of political activities of students.

In neoliberal theory, the claim is that privatization of higher education will lead to independence of higher education. If we assume that the positive outcome of privatizing universities can be relative independence from the state and freedom of civil and political activism for students, this does not apply in Iran. The tools of suppression, control, and ideological censorship in the Islamic Republic do not allow individuals to have freedom of thought and independence. For example, the Ministry of Science’s inspection takes away the independence of private higher education institutions (if they have any!).

A university research entitled “Consequences of Privatization in Higher Education”, written by Dr. Seyed Reza Salehi Amiri, shows that the political consequence of privatizing universities is the lack of participation in political organizations of private universities and the lack of student participation in protests following the privatization of universities. The studies of this research show that students who pay tuition fees are generally less involved in critical thinking activities compared to other students. Even in universities like Payame Noor University, there is no political organization. It seems that the financial preoccupation of many students turns them into mere buyers of expensive higher education, instead of being agents of change and liberation in society.

Of course, this does not mean that students in public universities have freedom and independence to form student and political organizations. One of the political problems in Iran is the government’s struggle against student movements and its suppression. The government fears the university and its potential for criticism and change. Therefore, from the beginning, it has tried to hinder the creation of organizations and student publications through cultural revolution and constant suppression of activist students. It has also tried to make students in public universities politically powerless.

Despite this, privatization of higher education has not only always been beneficial to the government from an economic standpoint, but also politically, by monetizing and imposing a competitive logic, while simultaneously controlling and not allowing space for students to be activists, it has helped the widespread project of the Islamic Republic in suppressing political activists.

I am seeking personal gain instead of solidarity.

In neoliberal theory, the individual is an economic being (homo-economic); someone who competes in a free market and has no responsibility other than to increase their own personal gain. Instrumental rationality and a self-interested approach to seeking profit have become dominant characteristics of the 21st century human in the neoliberalized world. Each individual is solely responsible for pulling their own blanket out of the water and making a profit in this market system. If an individual fails in this market, they are responsible for their own failure. In such individuals, moral values of “solidarity” and “assistance” are replaced by elevating “individual gain” and “individualism”.

The privatization of higher education reduces students to mere consumers who receive goods and certificates in exchange for the tuition they pay. At the same time, profit-driven universities view students as sources of income, expecting them to give the most profit back to the institution. In the absence of student and community activities that promote solidarity and a sense of responsibility towards society, the government cultivates individuals who are solely focused on their own interests and avoiding collective concerns, with their main worry being paying for university tuition. As a result, human values such as solidarity and helping the less fortunate gradually diminish in the process of higher education, giving way to individual competition and selfishness.