While pressures on teachers’ activists by the Iranian regime continue, the regime’s Ham-Mihan newspaper has published a report examining the livelihood problems of teachers, with accounts of “insignificant wages, lack of job security, and teacher labor” being published.
In the report published on April 16, emphasis was placed on the “more critical conditions” of teachers’ “services procurement and contract teachers,” with teachers teaching in “deprived areas” having minimal rights that are paid “irregularly,” and “their insurance rights, if not formally employed, are not fully paid.”
According to this report, the wages of these teachers “sometimes do not even reach 80 million rials (approximately $122), and even this small amount is paid after several months with significant delays.”
According to the report, the current situation of teachers contradicts the promises of Reza Moradi Sahraei, the regime’s Minister of Education, who had previously stated that “with the implementation of the teacher ranking law, a minimum of 26 percent will be added to each teacher’s salary.”
The newspaper, by recalling that the education ministry uses retired teachers as contract teachers, has stated that this ministry compensates for its shortage by using retirees “at the lowest cost.”
The report quotes a teacher named Maryam as saying: “The Ministry of Education procrastinates in paying our salaries in a way that from the beginning of the academic year (after 7 months), they have only paid three months of our salary, and it is unclear when the rest of our salary will be paid. What was paid to me by the school principal was 50 million rials (approximately $77) per month, a very small amount for regular working hours.”
According to this teacher, “many teachers, due to the Ministry of Education’s behavior, have abandoned their classes, as there is no guarantee that their salaries will be paid.”
Another teacher named Mohammad, residing in Sistan and Baluchestan province, who has been working as a “services procurement and contractual teachers” in elementary school for 9 years, said that due to “difficult living conditions,” he also works as a “part-time assistant” to support his family of five.
Another teacher named Sima in this province stated that although she has been working for 9 years, “only four years’ worth of insurance has been paid for her,” meaning “insurance rights are only paid for two to three months each academic year.”
Hossein, another teacher interviewed by Ham-Mihan, who has “11 years of teaching experience,” said, “In these years, only four and a half years of our insurance has been paid. The Ministry of Education does not address this issue,” and he is forced to do “transportation” to support his family expenses.
According to this teacher, who works in Jaz Murian city, Kerman province (central Iran), one of his colleagues “passed away due to illness because he could not afford his medical expenses due to lack of insurance and sufficient salary.”
Similar experiences of other teachers are also mentioned in this report.
Reports of increasing poverty, shrinking teachers’ livelihoods, and violation of their rights by the Ministry of Education come at a time when the regime’s security and judicial crackdown on teachers and their unions has intensified since last year.
These crackdowns have prompted criticisms from teachers’ and workers’ unions worldwide.
According to a previous report by the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Guilds, in 2023, 12 activists of teachers’ unions have been expelled and another 26 have received compulsory retirement sentences.
