Hossein Simaei Saraf, the Minister of Science, Research, and Technology of the Iranian regime, has reported the migration of “25 percent of the country’s university professors in recent years,” describing this statistic as “concerning.”
This is not the first time warnings have been issued in Iran about the migration of academics, including professors and students, particularly elite professors and students.
Two months ago, Simaei Saraf also stated at a meeting of university presidents that the trend of academic migration from Iran is “on the rise.”
The Minister of Science did not specify the exact time period during which this number of professors migrated from Iran and merely referred to the “recent years.” It is also unclear whether this statistic pertains only to public universities or includes non-governmental higher education institutions as well.
Amid a lack of transparency regarding the state of professor migration in Iran, state-run media have outright denied the occurrence of such a phenomenon.
Jam-e Jam newspaper, affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), published an article in September of last year, coinciding with the reopening of universities after the nationwide protests of 2022, titled “The Lie of Professor Migration.” The article claimed that the state of university professors migrating abroad had not reached a crisis level.
Although Iran’s Minister of Science has cited multiple reasons for professors’ migration, both he and Iranian media have primarily emphasized economic factors as the main cause.
The Ideological Approach in Universities
From its inception, the Islamic Republic has been highly sensitive about universities and promptly launched a wave of purges under the banner of the “Cultural Revolution” in universities.
Among these, the regime’s sensitivity regarding humanities disciplines is particularly pronounced, with Ali Khamenei, the regime’s leader, emphasizing these fields and calling for the “Islamization” of universities.
The outcome of such conditions has been nothing but the decline of Iranian universities’ academic rankings and the failure to cultivate competent and skilled individuals to manage the country’s affairs.
