Iran’s New School Year Begins — Pezeshkian Has Forgotten His Promise

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Iran’s New School Year Begins — Pezeshkian Has Forgotten His Promise

2026.09.21, 18:30

Iran’s new school year begins tomorrow, September 22 (1 Mehr).

Gunaz.tv

To mark the occasion, the country held the “Saplings Festival” today for first-grade students.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attended one of the school ceremonies and commemorated students who lost their lives at a school in Minab, Sistan and Baluchestan, which was mysteriously targeted during the recent war.

However, at the education event, the Iranian president made no mention of his pre-election promise concerning education in the native languages of all the country’s peoples.

Although millions of Azerbaijanis live in Iran, only Persian is used as the language of instruction in state schools, while the right to systematic education in one’s mother tongue is still not officially recognized.

Article 15 of Iran’s Constitution provides for the use of local languages in the press and mass media, as well as the teaching of their literature in schools. In practice, however, this provision has not been implemented.

Persian remains the sole language of instruction and education throughout the country’s general education system.

There is no school education in Azerbaijani Turkish or other non-Persian languages, including Kurdish, Arabic and Balochi. Although promises concerning pilot programs or elective classes are occasionally made, no tangible results have been achieved to date.

During presidential and parliamentary election campaigns, candidates often promise education in native languages, but these promises are forgotten after the elections, while the monolingual education system continues to be strengthened.

Currently, many Azerbaijani mother-tongue activists are being held in Iranian prisons. They face accusations such as “separatism,” “propaganda against the government,” “espionage” and other charges that intended to prevent activists from establishing a legal basis for their demands concerning mother-tongue and national rights.

Masoud Pezeshkian, whose election was significantly supported by Azerbaijanis, occasionally recites a few lines of poetry in Azerbaijani. This raises the hopes of groups that still expect the problem to be resolved within the Islamic Republic system, while allowing the regime to benefit from their support for its policies.

GUNAZ.TV

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