A Teacher's Life In Iran

American Thinker.com ^ | November 17, 2021 | Cyrus Yaqubi

[Kaslin]

This article translates a teacher’s responses to questions about life in Iran today.

Greetings. My name is Saman A. I have taught high school math for 25 years in a city south of Tehran. I hope my words shed light on how poorly teachers fare in Iran.

Before the 1979 revolution, most teachers, especially primary school teachers, were economically part of Iran’s lower-middle-class, although high school teachers were slightly better situated. Still, teachers’ salaries could make ends meet and one job would cover their monthly expenses. Teachers were highly respected and the job was seen as a privilege.

After the revolution, Khomeini and his mullahs raised religious teaching and sidelined all secular education. In an early speech, Khomeini said universities were more dangerous than a cluster bomb. In 1981, just two years after the revolution and under the pretext of the Cultural Revolution and Islamization, the regime closed all universities on the ground that they were centers of political campaigns and activities.

The regime also began to purge students and professors who did not fit within the mullah’s fundamentalist system. Many professors either opted to retire or left to pursue their careers in other countries.

As years passed by, the budget allocated to education shrank gradually. In the beginning, the share of the education budget was 6% of the country’s GDP; it is 3% now. In 2019, Iran allocated an estimated $340/year for each student, while America spent an average of $12,201/year for each student.

Currently, the salaries for most Iranian teachers do not even reach half of the poverty line so most of the teachers live below the poverty line. They must take second and sometimes third jobs for a living. This financial struggle affects the quality of primary education in Iran.

[texas booster]

Good article.

I sent this to my kids and grandkids.

[texas booster]

From the end of the article:

The government consistently aims to sideline young people who don’t support the theocratic system. However, the November 2019 protests were popular among young people. Iran’s young people—those the age of my students—seem poised to explode once COVID fully abates. Even former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that a flood is coming soon that will destroy the regime for good.

Therefore, CoViD will never abate.