Babak Negahdari, head of the Parliamentary Research Center, announced a shortage of 176,000 teachers in the country for the new academic year and said that in addition, it is predicted that about 72,000 teachers will retire by September 2024. He emphasized that this would make staffing more difficult for the Ministry of Education.
Negahdari, in the open session of the parliament on Sunday and during the review of the Minister of Education’s report on the 2023-2024 academic year, cited the neglect of developing the capacities of Teachers University and the near weakening and dissolution of teacher training centers and the set of employment laws for teachers from 2009 to 2021 as the reasons for the human resources crisis in the Ministry of Education.
He also mentioned the employment of retirees for classroom teaching, stating that although the law allows the Ministry of Education to do so, the several-month delay in payment and the low level of their wages are serious obstacles to the cooperation of retired teachers with schools.
Negahdari’s remarks come at a time when dozens of teachers have been suspended or permanently dismissed by the ruling of the Administrative Violations Committee of the Ministry of Education since autumn 2022 due to their union activities and support for the revolutionary uprising.
Mohammad Habibi, spokesperson for the Teachers’ Union Association, announced on June 21 on his X account that many newly employed teachers have been dismissed due to posting protest messages on social media following the killing of Mahsa Amini.
This teacher, who was dismissed by the ruling of the Administrative Violations Committee of the Ministry of Education and its approval by the Administrative Court of Justice, wrote about the dismissal of teachers: “I have reliable information that in just one section of the Gilan Province’s education department, dozens of new teachers have been dismissed for just one Instagram post, and this issue has not been publicized because they are worried about its security implications.”
Habibi added: “There are many such cases in the country, and one of the reasons for the shortage of personnel in the Ministry of Education in these two years has been these dismissals.”
Now, the head of the Parliamentary Research Center stated that teaching jobs for men have faced a significant decline in demand due to various economic reasons, such as the high cost of housing in metropolises like Tehran. He said that in the 2023 employment test in Tehran metropolis, the capacity for accepting men was 1,578, but due to the lack of interest, 1,354 positions, equivalent to 86% of this capacity, remained unfilled even in the completion stage.
According to Negahdari, in the entire country in 2023, out of more than 57,000 permits for hiring teachers, over 10,000 permits remained unfilled.
He identified another problem in education as the lack of solid educational spaces and said: “About 104,000 classrooms in the country, equivalent to 19.2% of all classrooms in the education system, need to be demolished, rebuilt, or reinforced.”
Negahdari said, 79,000 classrooms need standardization of heating and cooling systems.
Mohammad Habibi, in a statistical report in May 2024, reminded that between May and August 2022, thousands of teachers in Iran were briefly detained during union gatherings, and during this period, the government detained and sent over 150 union activists to security wards.
The International Trade Union Confederation also criticized the detention and issuance of long prison sentences for teachers and union activists in its 2024 report, stating that 44 leaders and members of the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) are currently in “arbitrary detention” due to their union activities.
