Alirza Quluncu, Voice of America, April 22, 2019
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According to the Deputy Minister of Primary Education, preparations are underway to make two years of preschool education mandatory for children in regions inhabited by non-Persian communities, including Tehran.
In her statements published by the “Mehr” news agency, Ms. Hekimzadeh pointed out that non-Persian children entering first grade often "have trouble understanding conversations in Persian."
"The educational failure in non-Persian regions is not because the children are less intelligent. It is because they do not understand the language, which leads to failure and dropping out of school. Therefore, starting from the next school year, we have decided to send children in poor, non-Persian regions to preschool programs two years earlier, starting at the age of 4," she said.
A representative from the Ministry of Education emphasized that due to budgetary and financial limitations, the program will initially be implemented in poorer regions.
Rizvan Hekimzadeh noted that "legal changes" would be necessary to implement this initiative.
Cultural activists operating in Iranian Azerbaijan argue that the new program is aimed at accelerating the assimilation process of Turks and other non-Persian communities.
In recent years, the demand for education in the Turkish language in Iranian Azerbaijan and Tehran has been raised not only by language rights activists but also by members of parliament and local politicians.
Between 2009 and 2013, Iran's Minister of Education, Hamid Reza Hachibabaei, had stated that 70 percent of schoolchildren in the country speak a language other than Persian at home.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
İranda qeyri-farslar üçün 4 yaşından icbari fars dili tədrisi başlayacaq