Iran To Revise 200 Schoolbooks In Line With Khamenei’s Views

Iranian Education Minister Yousef Nouri said Wednesday that 200 schoolbooks of the country’s education system will be revised as ordered by the Supreme Leader. 

Nouri said that the revision of textbooks and educational content will be carried out for the next academic year in 2023 because the books were being printed when the order was issued.

About 200 titles of books from all grades of elementary to high school have been sent for revision, he said, adding that some of them will be revised by the professors at the Farhangian teacher training university and some by the country's educational research and planning organization. 

Earlier in the year, Ali Khamenei said that the content of some schoolbooks that is not practical and does not benefit the students should be removed. 

In the last few years, some changes and edits in students’ textbooks, including removal of an illustration of some girls from the cover of the third-grade math book and adding anti-American and pro-Russia materials, led to controversy among Iranians. 

A conscious ‘Islamization’ of primary, middle and high school books started soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The process has applied to literature, art and all illustrations in the teaching of history. Last year textbooks were revised to play down historical rivalry between Iran and Russia, particularly in the 18th and early 19th century, reflecting Tehran’s current desire for closer relations with Moscow.

President Ebrahim Raisi has also permanently cancelled the implementation of UNESCO 2030, a United Nations document calling for gender equality in education that Khamenei had suspended in 2017. Former President Hassan Rouhani’s administration had adopted the document as a UN member state and was planning its implementation when hardliners lobbied Khamenei to suspend it.