“این عکس یک کودک خندان در حال بازی است”

“This photo shows a smiling child playing.”
Mohammad Habibi

In December 2016, a document titled “National Education 2030” was unveiled by the Ministers of Education, Training, and Science. This document, developed with the guidance of UNESCO, was intended to outline a strategic plan for education in the country from 2016 to 2030. Its ultimate goal was to improve the quality of education and promote literacy for all.

With all this, this document has become one of the main points of contention between political factions and power groups in the fierce battle of the presidential election in Kouran, and before its implementation, it was archived forever.

During the days leading up to the elections, with the guidance of the leader of the Islamic Republic in his meetings with educators, the topics related to this educational document were placed at the forefront of election news. Ayatollah Khamenei, while mentioning the fundamental conflicts of this document with the laws and values governing the Islamic Republic, called for the complete removal of this document from the agenda of the country’s educational system. He said in this meeting, “This is the Islamic Republic. This is the basis of Islam, the basis of the Quran. This is not a place where the corrupt and destructive Western lifestyle can infiltrate and take hold.”

After the signals from the leader of the Islamic Republic, a heavy attack against the government and education system was initiated by the powerful opposition movement. The government’s opponents saw the promotion and education of this document as a serious threat to the collapse of the family institution and social foundations, and in this regard, they emphasized the rights of homosexuals and promoted it as their assessment of the document. An allegation that, it seemed, had no evidence in the document. In response, President Rouhani and his supporters tried to defend the document by explaining its values and countering the opponents’ claims. To the extent that Rouhani considered defending the mentioned document as defending the honor of teachers in the midst of election battles, and rejected the opponents’ claims, viewing their actions as an attempt to discredit the country’s education system and teachers.

However, shortly after the elections, the cancellation of the implementation of the document and its removal from the agenda of the Ministry of Education was confirmed by the head of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution.

Although the debate surrounding this educational document has been portrayed in the political arena and from the perspective of factional competition, a look at the performance and structure of Iran’s education system in the past 38 years supports another point. In other words, the change in the educational structure in terms of nature after the Islamic Revolution, and the emphasis of the leaders of the Islamic Republic on the basis of Islamic jurisprudence in schools and the planning that has been carried out in these years, especially the content of textbooks, shows that the level of this conflict must be searched for in a deeper context.

After the 1979 revolution and the rise of Islamic movements in Iran, the educational system, which had previously promoted secular goals during the Pahlavi regime, underwent a complete ideological transformation. A system based on Shia jurisprudence, with all its components being Islamic, was established. This was the basis for the Fundamental Transformation Council of Education and Training, which officially began its work in April 1986 after its approval by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. After 150 sessions of discussion and deliberation, the framework for the Islamic Republic’s educational system was drafted and approved in September 1990.

One of the most important goals of this new educational system was the expansion and mastery of religious and ideological discourse over the educational system. Based on this, the process of Islamization of schools and universities, which began in the years after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, took on a systematic and defined framework.

One of the most important laws passed in the new educational system was the “Goals and Duties of the Ministry of Education”, which was essentially a fundamental law for education and its political-ideological framework in Iran, based on the principles and foundations of Ja’fari Shiite jurisprudence.

In the first chapter of this law, it is stated that: “The necessity of teaching the principles and teachings of the clear religion of Islam and the Jafari school of thought based on reason, the Quran, and the teachings of the infallibles, and prioritizing religious education over other subjects.” Additionally, in article 2, this law addresses 14 objectives of education and training in the Islamic Republic. These objectives include: “The growth of moral virtues and the purification of students based on the teachings of Islam, the clarification of Islamic values and the cultivation of students based on them, strengthening the spirit of reliance on God, creating a spirit of religious devotion and practical commitment to the laws of Islam, and promoting political insight based on the principle of guardianship of the jurist.”

Based on such a nature of the general education structure in Iran, it is possible to understand the opposition of the leader of the Islamic Republic and the conservative faction – who promote the ideology of the true interpretation of the nature of the Islamic Republic – to the opposition of the 2030 document and its contradiction with the values of the Islamic government.

Although all the goals of the 2030 educational document are based on the universal human needs and necessities, such as poverty alleviation, illiteracy, gender discrimination, and overall development of the human society, the acceptance and implementation of it, above all, acknowledges the failure of the ideological-Islamic educational system in providing a comprehensive educational program after 38 years of political rule.

In fact, contrary to the claims of opposing parties, although none of the general provisions and goals of the document were in conflict with the moral values of Iranian society today, it was clear that even with the removal of certain provisions, including the removal of gender equality, it was not possible to implement it in the structure of the country’s public education system with such nature.

It is not a coincidence that after 38 years of the establishment of the Islamic system, the most basic educational topics in developed and developing countries, including sexual education, have no place in Iranian schools.

Understanding such cases is only possible within the context of these fundamental conflicts between modern global education and the current ideological education system in Iran.

From this perspective, Ayatollah Khamenei is a worthy successor to the founder of the Islamic Republic; he, who just eight days after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, issued the order to cleanse the educational system from the remnants of colonial culture and establish a school system based on revolutionary and Islamic teachings at the Alavi School.

The educational institution, which after 38 years, its general teachings are still dominant on the structure of the country’s public education, and despite its overall inconsistency with the values ​​of the new generation of Iranians, continues without any prospect of change or reform.