This is a picture of a beautiful flower.
Mohammad Habibi

The Ministry of Education is the largest and, in other words, the most troublesome government organization that has been subject to change and instability since the early days of the Islamic Revolution until today. The constant changes in management structures, changes in the education system, and changes in the content of textbooks have various reasons; however, mismanagement and trial and error in the administration of public education have been evident throughout these years. This mismanagement has resulted in the direct loss of a comprehensive educational and developmental program, leading to a decline in the quality of education and an increase in delinquency in schools and among students.

Based on this, the lack of efficient and effective forces to manage this largest ministry of the country has been a constant challenge in all the years after the revolution. A challenge that has become more apparent during the selection of a new minister, thanks to social media networks.

A look at the educational management group after the Islamic Revolution shows that practically a limited circle of political managers have had the opportunity to be at the helm of this ministry during these years. These are managers who are also considered by the leadership of the Islamic Republic in their selection.

Undoubtedly, the lack of effective forces in this ministry is more than anything else the result of policies and changes that have changed the face of this ministry in the 1990s.

The first changes in the structure of public education during the early years of the revolution were the widespread purging of forces from schools and offices. Just eight days after the victory of the Islamic Revolution on February 19, 1979, at Alavi School, the founder of the Islamic Republic outlined the general lines of the new educational system in a meeting with education officials: “Revise the textbooks, whether for elementary, secondary, or university levels, and eliminate any content or images that serve colonialism and tyranny.”

The purification of the education system was accompanied by extensive purging of forces that were deemed incompatible with the general lines of the Islamic government, according to the revolutionary decision-makers. The establishment of Islamic associations in all government departments and the Islamic Teachers’ Association, with the specific goal of completely purifying the structure of education and implementing necessary reforms, took place.

It is in this path that Ayatollah Khomeini, on 31 March 1981, explains the mission of Islamic associations as follows: “This is a great responsibility. For you who are there and want to bring schools or whatever is in schools in an Islamic way. And this is a great commitment.”

According to the founder of the Islamic Republic, identifying the revolutionary backgrounds of individuals was one of the important duties of Islamic associations. These institutions, according to Ayatollah Khomeini, were responsible for identifying individuals’ backgrounds, such as “their pre-revolution history, their actions and roles during the revolution, their involvement in any activities before the revolution, and whether their families were committed to Islam or not.”

In other words, the criteria and standards for selecting educational managers and officials in all years of the 1990s were such cases. And although in the mid-1970s, criteria such as expertise also entered the discourse of revolutionary forces, the main criteria for selecting first-class officials were still close to the criteria outlined by Ayatollah Khomeini.

According to such guidelines, the Islamic Teachers Association was responsible for the extensive cleansing of forces in the structure of the country’s public education and the selection and appointment of new managers.

The purification of the educational space from incompatible forces required the establishment of new staffing. The establishment of the Educational Affairs Institution in those years was carried out with the aim of cultivating revolutionary forces to manage the education and training departments. An institution that mainly provided its necessary staff from revolutionary institutions such as the Foundation of the Oppressed, the Revolutionary Guards, and the Jihad for Construction. In fact, based on this approach, from the early years of the revolution, the possibility of entry of dissenting and intellectual forces into the management circles of education and training was closed.

The circles that have held the reins of public education in the country for the past 37 years with minimal changes. Even with changes in governments during the past 37 years – governments that have sometimes had different cultural policies – we have not seen any fundamental changes in the structure of educational management in the country.

As a result, we are faced with a connected structure that is currently experiencing a crisis of replacement and a lack of efficient and effective forces at the top of the country’s education system, and even at the intermediate levels. A structure whose foundation has been laid by purifying and cleansing the education system from non-revolutionary forces and training forces in line with the jurisprudential-Shiite discourse. A discourse that is constantly in conflict with modern, non-ideological and secular teachings.