According to local news agencies, from this year on, many fields of study will be eliminated from Iranian universities degree programs, or the admission capacity of students in those fields will be reduced by 30 to 40 percent. These disciplines include: Persian language and literature, foreign languages, archaeology, restoration of historical monuments, museology, art, writing, painting, fiction writing and literature, teaching English, painting, handicrafts, television directing, and visual communication.
In addition, the government has announced major changes to the contents of textbooks, and to curricula that will cover more than 100 disciplines. Officials at the Ministry of Science of the Islamic Republic of Iran cited one of the reasons for these important changes to be the students’ lack of interest in the removed fields, or the departure of hundreds of thousands of professors from Iran, many of high expertise and academic standing. The government has cited the reason for the brain drain as “economic,” whereas the real reason is that many of these professors have had their writings and statements censored. The domination of a religious space over scientific fields, and at times the restrictive control over academic disciplines and sometimes unnecessary detentions of many university professors are the real reasons for their escape from their homeland.
According to local news agencies, from this year on, many fields of study will be eliminated from Iranian universities degree programs, or the admission capacity of students in those fields will be reduced by 30 to 40 percent. These disciplines include: Persian language and literature, foreign languages, archaeology, restoration of historical monuments, museology, art, writing, painting, fiction writing and literature, teaching English, painting, handicrafts, television directing, and visual communication.
In addition, the government has announced major changes to the contents of textbooks, and to curricula that will cover more than 100 disciplines. Officials at the Ministry of Science of the Islamic Republic of Iran cited one of the reasons for these important changes to be the students’ lack of interest in the removed fields, or the departure of hundreds of thousands of professors from Iran, many of high expertise and academic standing. The government has cited the reason for the brain drain as “economic,” whereas the real reason is that many of these professors have had their writings and statements censored. The domination of a religious space over scientific fields, and at times the restrictive control over academic disciplines and sometimes unnecessary detentions of many university professors are the real reasons for their escape from their homeland.
It is clear that what the Islamic government is doing now is the implementation of parts of the plan that the Islamic revolutionaries had prepared for Iran from the beginning: to worsen the scientific content of Iranian universities from international standards and to turn the universities into seminaries. We therefore see a long list of Islamic courses that are offered in universities instead of other courses in humanities, political sciences, and other important fields of study.
It is clear that what the Islamic government is doing now is the implementation of parts of the plan that the Islamic revolutionaries had prepared for Iran from the beginning: to worsen the scientific content of Iranian universities from international standards and to turn the universities into seminaries. We therefore see a long list of Islamic courses that are offered in universities instead of other courses in humanities, political sciences, and other important fields of study.
