Islamicizing Schools: A Step towards Security-based Education

Rooz Online:

With the appointment of Mahmoud Farshidi as Iran’s new Minister of Education, some hardline religious officials began talking about Islamicizing schools books. Mohsen Ghara’ati, a conservative religious preacher and television personality was among the fist to set the media stage for turning schools books more Islamic. Just a few days ago, the cleric Ghara’ati criticized the texts used in universities and high schools. He said that the content of these books are not welcome by the faithful youth, a reference to ultra-conservative youth.

Since the early days of the revolution in 1979, Ghara’ati has played different roles in the writing of religious school books. In his meetings with officials of the Cultural Revolution Council, he criticized former ministers and religious teachers for their negligence of the issue. READ MORE

The new Minister of Education has asked senior religious teachers in Qom to support him in Islamizing the schools. Changing the content of school curricula appears to be another project of the new hardline-conservative government in Tehran, after the unpopular appointments of a cleric to head Tehran University.

Farshidi has recommended that a group of senior religious scholars in Qom and educational experts form a committee to meticulously review all schoolbooks. Political observers are skeptical about how many people will actually take up the call and work on the project. They also point out that the new policy could turn out to be just a pretext for purging the many government employees who while not even active in any sense, hold views that are different from those of the hardliners or religious conservatists. Iran’s government employees comprise a large number of middle class individuals who look at their job as a job, and do not get engaged in politics. Observers fear that Islamization is an excuse of the president’s men whose goal is to replace many high and middle ranking government staff with their own to ensure compliance and total obedience in the bureaucracy.

Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iran has witnessed two waves of Islamization in schools and universities. The first wave aimed at revolutionizing and Islamicizing the schools came a few days after the collapse of the ancient regime. The angry ideological waves of people washed away thousands of teachers from their work. The sackings were the biggest ideological and human purge in a governmental department.

Many experts have expressed their concerns over the current measures. An education expert says that the Islamization of educational institutions that began with the universities can have dangerous long term effects on the country's educational system and could deepen the existing identity crisis among Iranian youth.

Only time can tell whether the Islamization of schools will lead to Islamic and religious education of the youth. The first wave of Islamization of educational institutions showed that the result was the birth and growth of an un-Islamic generation of Iranian youth. During the last presidential elections, candidates focused more on religious freedoms rather than emphasis religious principles and values.