12 academic disciplines under review by Iran's education authorities

Abolfazl Hassani

Iranian Ministry of Science and Technology announced that 12 disciplines in the humanities will have to be revised before any further developments are approved in those fields.

Abolfazl Hassani, head of Education Development at the Ministry of Education, told reporters today that the fields of “law, human rights, women’s studies, economics, sociology, media, political science, philosophy, psychology, education, administration as well as cultural and artistic administration” are under review. He added some will be reviewed by the end of the year and others by the end of summer.

He maintained that those universities that do not have these departments and want to establish them will have to wait until the reviews are finalized.

He added that the contents of these sciences as taught at present are not consistent with religious principles and are based on “Western culture.”

Hassani went on to say: “It is imperative that we revise the contents of these disciplines in view of our religious and indigenous ideology and principles.”

In the past year, Iranian establishment has repeatedly called for an overhaul of the humanities’ curricula in universities.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointed to the enrollment of over 2 million students in the humanities saying these disciplines are based on “the Western worldview” and lead to “dissemination of doubt in the principles of religious teaching.”

The Ministry of Science has thus taken a number of initiatives to address the concerns of the Supreme Leader which range form dismissing progressive professors to today’s announcement about reviewing the curricula.