Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei
The Islamic Republic has announced its intention to change the content of textbooks in foreign language schools after criticism by Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei.
Head of Non-Governmental Schools and Centers Ahmad Mahmoudzadeh told ILNA Sunday that “We will have a call to produce content of language books for schools, which will be implemented in line with the order of the Supreme Leader.”
"Language books that have nothing to do with our culture will be discarded," he added.
Changing the content of textbooks based on the government's propaganda policies has been implemented in the last few years upon the order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, this is the first time that these changes will be applied to the language teaching books of private institutes.
Ali Khamenei had earlier criticized teaching English in general, saying in 2016 that "now we have reached to a point that English language learning has been extended to kindergartens".
Following his comments, ministry of education put a ban on teaching English at primary schools.
English is not included in Iran's official curriculum during the six years of primary school, but various non-governmental and a small part of public schools teach students English as extra-curricular subject, and these classes are not mandatory.
In recent years, some government officials have also suggested that instead of English, the teaching of Russian, Chinese and German languages should be supported in Iran.