TEHRAN – September dawn.
In the narrow lanes of a south-Tehran slum, eleven-year-old Zahra clutches a worn schoolbag and pauses before a rusted lock on her classroom door. Her teacher left when wages stopped coming. Yet the silence feels electric. This year’s first subject isn’t math or grammar, it’s freedom, a call that grows louder each day and dares a new generation to turn the start of school into the start of liberation.
Memories of 2022 are still burning. Back then, high schoolers transformed their own classrooms into arenas of revolt. Across at least 1,700 schools, students, especially girls, defied the clerical regime. After two years of official denial, Judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei finally conceded in May 2025 that more than 90,000 students and teachers were detained during those protests.[1] Their courage continues to haunt the rulers and inspire today’s youth.
Decades of Wealth, Decades of Neglect
After nearly half a century in power and trillions of dollars in oil earnings, the mullahs’ religious dictatorship has left an education record defined by failure. Roughly 18 million Iranians remain unable to read fluently or have only rudimentary literacy, a staggering figure for a country so rich in natural resources.[2]
In the last school year alone, about two million children never set foot in a classroom,[3] while poverty now forces the families of some five million students to forgo even basic notebooks and pencils.[4] Instead of supporting education, the regime funnels close to one-third of its national budget into internal repression and foreign wars.
Funding for universities has fallen from 4 percent of the budget in 2019 to just 2.8 percent today, and spending on primary and secondary schools has dropped from 13.4 percent to 8.7 percent.
A Nation’s Children, Starved of Support
The Iranian regime devotes less than 2 percent of GDP to education, half the minimum recommended by UNESCO. Parliamentary reports show that only 8.2 percent of government spending now reaches schools, and almost all of that pays salaries, leaving barely 2 percent for repairs or new materials.[5] Per-student spending is a meager $300, compared with a global average of $9,313, while Japan—whose student population is similar—invests 52 times more (state TV, June 30, 2024).
The results are visible everywhere: a shortage of around 176,000 teachers,[6] crumbling buildings, and thousands of urban and rural schools without even basic plumbing or sanitary toilets.[7]
A 2017 plan promised $3 billion to strengthen unsafe structures; barely 1.4 percent was ever delivered. Today more than 4,000 mud-brick schools and over 1,000 metal “container” classrooms remain.[8]
Policing Education
Rather than fix the crisis, the regime tightened its grip. This year, Khamenei’s hand-picked president signed an agreement that effectively put schools under police authority, giving security forces the power to review textbooks and shape lesson plans. At the signing, the education minister openly described himself as a “soldier” of the notorious State Security commander Ahmadreza Radan—a chilling pledge to turn classrooms into surveillance posts.
Education for the Wealthy, Decay for the Rest
While public schools decay, privilege flourishes. About one million children of the elite attend private academies charging 35–80 million tomans (US $700–1,600) a year, complete with small classes and modern labs. Another 100,000 study in selective “gifted” schools.[9] Meanwhile 15 million students cram into dilapidated public classrooms, many without heat, cooling, or steady electricity.[10]
The price of a basic school uniform jumped 100–150 percent in 2024 to over 1.5 million tomans—more than a week’s pay for a worker earning 7 million tomans a month—forcing families to choose between food and education.[11]
Girls Carry the Heaviest Burden
The clerical laws allow girls to marry at 13, and UNICEF reports that 17 percent of women aged 20–24 were wed before 18, with 3 percent married before 15. In Sistan-Baluchestan, 46 percent of girls leave school early because no secondary school exists nearby and travel is unsafe (Asr Iran, January 10, 2025).
Over the past decade, more than a million girls under 18 have been forced into marriage, and at least 15,000 gave birth before turning 15 (ISNA, April 13, 2022). Yet these same girls have often been the first to raise their voices in protest.
Global Test Scores Reveal the Damage
The decay is clear in international comparisons. In the 2021 PIRLS reading assessment, Iranian students averaged 413 points, near the bottom of 57 countries and down from 2016 levels. Even girls—who typically outperform boys worldwide—lost their edge.
The Regime’s Unintended Lesson
For all its censorship and the vast machinery built to indoctrinate, the clerical establishment has failed in its core mission: obedience. Instead, rebellion has taken root in the very generation it sought to control. Resistance Units now operate openly in schools and universities, determined to end religious tyranny.
Freedom’s Lesson Rings Louder
As Zahra steps away from the locked classroom, she isn’t defeated. She whispers the slogan she’s heard from older students: “Women, Resistance, Freedom.” Around her, classmates trade quiet plans for the next demonstration.
The Iranian regime has drained budgets, policed classrooms, and tried to drown young voices in fear. Yet the youth of Iran have already mastered the most important subject. This year, the first lesson is freedom—and they intend to write the next chapter themselves.
[1] Tasnim News Agency, May 6, 2025
[2] Abdolreza Fouladvand, Head of the Literacy Movement Organization, Tasnim News Agency, December 24, 2024.
[3] Farshad Ebrahimpour, Member of the Parliament’s Education Commission, Didban-e Iran Website, October 20, 2024.
[4] Amir Toiserkani, Manufacturer and Vice President of Stationery Producers, Chand Sanieh Telegram, 14 September 2025.
[5] Shahraranews.ir, October 22, 2024.
[6] Head of the Parliament Research Center, June 30, 2024.
[7] Tasnim News Agency, January 8, 2024.
[8] Tabnak.ir, February 14, 2021
[9] Setaresobh.ir, July 16, 2023.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Nabzebaazaar.com, September 8, 2025