"In some areas, we have seen teaching in local languages, which is a very dangerous matter. Children learn their local language at home. So they have to learn the formal language – Persian – at school,” Minister Mohammad Bathaei said in a visit to Fars province this week.
"Schools are the only place that can promote the Persian language as a red line of the unity of Iran" he added.
Iran’s official language is Persian, but the many different ethnic groups also speak a variety of languages.
"We have three languages in Iran: Persian, Turkish, and Arabic,” said Hadi Bahadori, a Turkish PM from Urmia, reacting to the minister’s comments.
“Other languages like Kurdish, Lori, Gilaki, and Mazini are part of the Persian language. In fact in Iran we have only Turkish and Persian as the two languages with a large number of speakers,” Bahadori added.
A Kurdish MP also criticized the minister’s stance.
“What the mister of education said is baseless,” said Jalal Mahmodzadeh, MP for Mahabad.
Article 15 of the Iranian Constitution allows Kurdish and other languages spoken in the country to be used as languages of study, but implementation of the article has been difficult.
"The minister of education and the president have no practical plan for promoting Article 15 of the constitution,” Mahmodzadeh told Rudaw.
He also refuted Bahadori’s assertion that Kurdish can be considered a dialect of Persian.
"Kurdish is a living language with a long history. About 50 million people speak this language. Kurdish language is not part of Persian language," Mahmodzadeh said.
In the 2013 presidential election campaign, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged that his government would work to gradually implement Article 15.
Seeking re-election in 2017, Rouhani said he would continue to work for the realization of the rights of minority groups.
Schools were permitted to offer studies in Kurdish in the 2016-2017 school year, but the curriculum still had not been adapted to the Kurdish language.
The government has already banned teaching English in primary schools, claiming the early education lays the “groundwork for the Iranian culture.”
