🔶 Start of the school year in Iran; again, without mother tongues 🔻 Report by M. Reza Rahmati

Article 15 of the Constitution, after designating Persian as the “official and common language and script of the people of Iran,” declares freedom for the use of local and ethnic languages in the media and for “teaching their literature in schools, alongside Persian language.”

However, nearly 47 years after the adoption of the Constitution, this article has still not been turned into a regular, nationwide program in schools, and several generations of children from Turkish, Kurdish, Baluchi, Arab, Turkmen, and other linguistic communities have gone through their school years without the possibility of official and comprehensive education in their mother tongue language and literature.

Three experts, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, addressed the reasons behind the continuation of this situation from historical, political, and linguistic angles, the consequences for children, and the possibility of moving toward multilingual education.