The Iranian regime, which Trump’s sanctions have pushed close to bankruptcy, is trying in various ways to cover its budget deficit by starving its people, both physically and mentally. The regime robs them of food and energy and denies Iranian youth an education that will allow them to escape poverty.

To raise money, the regime exports goods that are essential for its citizens’ survival, such as eggs, poultry, vegetables, and other agricultural products. It also exports gas and electricity at a discount to neighboring countries and converts the payments into foreign currency to use for meddling activities abroad. Meanwhile, Iranians burn dirty, low-quality mazut at home, polluting the air for its citizens.

The regime engages in further savings by cutting various public services and education budgets. It uses the money it saves to increase its military and security budgets and to support its proxy forces in the region. It recently increased the IRGC and Quds Force budgets by 58%.

These policies have led to bitter poverty and misery in Iran. A clear example is the misery that students experience. On January 23, 2021, the Hamdeli newspaper wrote (my translation):

The suffering of Iranian students is a never-ending tale. From the burning of classrooms to the collapse of school roofs to snake-infested classrooms made of bricks and mud and the challenges of schools made of huts and containers, etc., it is difficult to imagine a significant number of students in deprived areas of the country studying in dilapidated schools or schools made of huts or containers. But, these unsafe schools that do not have any educational standards, are the bitter realities of education in Iran, often associated with tragic events, such as the fire, on January 19, 2021, in the School in Dezful (southwestern Iran) that was made of containers in which three teachers were burned and two students died.

(You can read about the school fire here.)

On social media, someone under the name of Rahgozar wrote:

In the 21st century, in a country that is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of oil and gas resources, there are still schools made of huts and containers, isn’t this a shame?

At the same time, since the start of the new school year, the media and government institutions have reported that many students have dropped out of school.

According to the Javan Newspaper of December 31, 2020 (my translation),

The increase in drop-out rate is alarming, and many provincial education directors across the country have announced the statistics and sounded the alarm. These harsh conditions have caused many students to drop out of school. The reasons for those who have left or are leaving range from joining the labor force to provide for their families, lacking equipment for online education, including not having a proper smartphone, and, in some regions of the country, lack or outage of internet. In some areas, because of bad coverage, students must go to higher elevations and mountainous regions in this cold weather.

Regarding children’s drop-out rate, the Iran newspaper wrote on December 24, 2020 (my translation):

In the beginning of August, the Minister of Education announced that more than three million students were at risk of dropping out of school for reasons such as not having a smartphone or tablet, or not having internet access.

In contrast, students from wealthy families attend luxury schools that the regime supports. They have teachers in every classroom and benefit from high tech communication systems. Discrimination and inequality in access to education is a direct result of corruption in the regime’s educational system.

The Tasnim News Agency December 23, 2020, while pointing to the prevalence of coronavirus dictating the need for e-learning for many children and the inability of their families to provide e-learning facilities acknowledged the inequality between students from poor and rich families and wrote: “It made the issue of inequality more apparent in all aspects of society.”

The Mullahs in Iran are single-mindedly focused on terrorism to bring about their dream of a Shia caliphate. To pay for that dream, they are willing to leave their situations starved, frozen, and uneducated.

IMAGE: Iranian classroom (2007). YouTube screengrab.