You don’t know, so it’s wrong to ask your question!

You don’t know, so it’s wrong to ask your question!

Ahmed Shabani Baneh

On December 5, 26 members of the Knesset, led by a representative from the Kurdish region, asked the Minister of Education to explain the reasons for not implementing Article 15 of the Constitution and reading and writing in the mother tongue in schools? Since the representatives are the legislators of the country, it is expected that they are less likely to make legal mistakes when raising questions and writing legal arguments. I believe that these advocates have a wrong understanding of the issues raised in the above principles, which are explained in this brief.

In the question sheet, as mentioned above, the reason for raising the question is “non-implementation of Article 15 of the Constitution and mother tongue reading and writing in schools”. Here, in order to better understand this issue, it is necessary to refer to Article 15 of the Constitution and conduct a detailed review of the claims in question. Article 15 provides:

“The official common language and script of the Iranian people is Persian. Documents, letters, official texts and textbooks must be in this language and script, but the use of local and minority languages ​​in the press and mass media and the teaching of their literature in schools, along with Persian, is free.

Looking carefully at the above principles and in its second part, where the Ministry of Education is responsible for this, it is stated that: “The teaching of literature (local and national languages) in schools is free, as is the Persian language.” Now, I would like to ask the deputies, where is the “reading and writing in the mother tongue” in this part of Article 15 inferred from? Teaching literature does not mean reading and writing in the mother tongue. Because the teaching of late literature is based on learning the language. Of course, this is a question for experts, and now even the authors of this constitutional principle of 1958 can be asked such a question: does “teaching literature” come before “teaching language”, or vice versa? In simple terms, is “language teaching” achieved through the four-step process of listening, speaking, reading and writing more important, or is “literary teaching” of reading poetry, prose, etc. more important? If as far as the first and second stages of this process (listening and speaking) are concerned, we are relatively able to do this in informal education and training environments (homes), but we can say with certainty that for the third and fourth stages (reading and writing) the Ministry of Education (government) has not taken any action in the 38 years since the ratification of the Constitution.

Thus, the question of misunderstanding this principle has repeatedly arisen over the years; confusing the two categories of “mother tongue education” with “mother tongue education”, a mistake also made by the 26 delegates who signed the question, in fact, invoked Article 15, which requires reading and writing in the (mother tongue) which cannot be legally pursued, and therefore, according to this principle, it has no place among Arabs! So, in the 15-word principle, “mother tongue reading and writing” is not mentioned at all, and even “mother tongue teaching” is not used!

Now, with such an assessment, we can say that when the MPs – as the legislators of the country – do not have a clear and correct understanding of the only principle of national education, the goal of national education is not far away. I hope the Minister of Education will give a simple and appropriate answer. The legal basis of Article 15 is not to assume responsibility in this regard. In the current situation, the deputies would be better off thinking about eliminating legal obstacles to reading and writing in the mother tongue instead of “wishful thinking”. The provisions of Article 15 of the Constitution on national literary education (at the same level as the current half-paragraph), which have been implemented by the current government since 1992 in the form of slogans and political propaganda, have always been repetitive and boring. Now it is the turn of the deputies to announce their existence from time to time!

One thing that cannot be ignored is that from the government’s perspective, the teaching of local and ethnic languages ​​and literature and Persian seems to be the same as the Persian curriculum in some primary and secondary schools. The title of the “free lesson” in the textbook takes these two stages into consideration, and it is also a 6-page lesson compiled in the way of local culture; people of various ethnic groups and some cultural characteristics of the region are often introduced in Persian. Of course, this does not mean that the government attaches importance to minority literature, because this “free lesson” is the same for all provinces in the country. In this regard, there is no difference between students of Kurdish, Azerbaijani, etc. in Tehran, Yadzd and Semnan.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Minister of Education is referred to as “Dr. Batay” in the worksheets. At the same time, according to the records published on the day of the vote of confidence and in a letter to the provinces, the Minister warned the administrators not to use the title of “doctor” in their correspondence, because at the same time, he is the helmsman of the Ministry of Education, he is also a doctoral student and must take classes in this subject. There is no legal basis for conferring a doctorate to someone who does not have a doctorate, especially if this title is used by a legislative representative!