Message from Maryam Rajavi on the 2025–2026 Academic Year

My dear daughters and sons,
Students in primary schools, high schools, and universities,
Your millions-strong presence at the start of the school year strikes fear into the hearts of the ruling reactionaries and tyrants.
Honorable teachers and professors, despite hardship, discrimination, and deprivation, you carry the vital responsibility of educating and shaping a decisive generation in these critical times.

The First Lesson is Freedom

This year, the first lesson, freedom, calls louder than ever, summoning the inquisitive generation of students to rise, to rebel, and to turn the reopening of schools and universities into a gateway to liberty.
We salute the students who have fallen for freedom and those who have endured prison and torture—from the devoted martyrs of the 1980s, especially the heroes of the September 27th epic, to the young people whose pure blood was shed by Khamenei’s Revolutionary Guards during the 2022 uprising.
The wide participation of students, particularly girls, in that uprising—rising up in at least 1,700 high schools—remains an unforgettable nightmare for the regime.
Last May, after two years of concealment, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei admitted that over 90,000 students university students, and teachers were arrested during the 2022 protests.[1]

This confession reveals the unwavering resolve of Iran’s youth to overthrow the regime and confirms the presence of a brave, rebellious force at the heart of a restless society.

The Regime’s Failure in Education

The mullahs’ religious dictatorship, now surrounded by major strategic failures, had already long since failed in education and higher learning.
Despite a 47-year opportunity and two to three trillion dollars in oil revenues, 18 million Iranians remain illiterate or barely literate.[2]

Last year, two million children were left out of school. [3]Thousands of urban and rural schools still lack basic plumbing or even proper toilets[4], while the education system faces a shortage of 176,000 teachers.[5]

Poverty has grown so severe that the families of five million students cannot afford to buy basic school supplies.[6]

Meanwhile, the share of higher education in the national budget has dropped from 4 percent in 2019 to 2.8 percent this year, and the share for primary and secondary education has fallen from 13.4 percent to 8.7 percent, while nearly 30 percent of the budget goes to repression and war.
This year, Khamenei’s hand-picked president formally placed schools under police control, empowering security forces not only to enforce the regime’s grip on schools but even to interfere in writing textbooks and educational materials. At the signing of this shameful agreement, Pezeshkian’s Education Minister proudly declared himself a “soldier” of the notorious commander of the State Security Force, Ahmadreza Radan.
Yet the regime’s greatest defeat in education is this: despite 46 years of censorship, repression, and a massive, costly apparatus to inject its reactionary ideology into the classroom, it has failed to make students obedient to its backward rule.
Instead, the force of revolution and rebellion has risen from within this very generation, led by courageous Resistance Units, determined more than ever to overthrow religious tyranny.
As Massoud Rajavi has said, “The regime is now a paper tiger, and the insurgent lions are ripping it to shreds, one link at a time.”

The Decisive Role of the Younger Generation

The new school year begins at a decisive moment, making the role of the younger generation, especially students, ever more critical.
Fulfilling this responsibility requires a clear and unwavering demarcation with the clerical regime and with all forms of dictatorship, and steadfast resistance against:
• Any action that slows the struggle against religious despotism,
• Any effort to compromise with factions of the regime,
• Anything that undermines the unity of the people’s forces,
• Any breach of Iran’s historic, national, and patriotic boundaries with the Shah and the mullahs, and
• Any stance that distracts from the central conflict between the Iranian people and the Velayat-e Faqih regime by provoking ethnic, religious, or cultural divisions.
Vigilant resistance to these diversionary and reactionary currents is the guarantee of victory in the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom.

A Free Iran of Tomorrow, under the sovereignty of its people, will make a progressive educational system possible—one in which everyone enjoys equal access to education and equal opportunities to participate in society, including employment and governance.
This vision stands in sharp contrast to the entrenched discrimination of the current regime, where girls, though the majority in universities, have the least share of employment and are barred from full political and social participation.

An Education System Rooted in Freedom, Democracy, and Equality

We are determined to build an educational system founded on freedom, democracy, and equality, where young people learn the principles of democratic life and a culture free from patriarchy, gender bias, coercion, and repression.
Every school and university will become a center of innovation in science, technology, and in living democratically and equally, free from coercion and exploitation.
This future is within reach.
Millions of students, teachers, and professors, led by the Resistance Units and the Great Army of Freedom, driven by the storms of uprising, will bring it to life.

[1] Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei: “Around 90,000 students (arrested) during the 2022 incidents were pardoned,” Tasnim News Agency, 6 May 2025.

[2] Abdolreza Fouladvand, Head of the Literacy Movement Organization, Tasnim News Agency, 24 December 2024.

[3] Farshad Ebrahimpour, Member of the Parliament’s Education Commission, Didban-e Iran Website, 20 October 2024.

[4] Tasnim News Agency, 8 January 2024.

[5] Head of the Parliament Research Center, 30 June 2024.

[6] Amir Toiserkani, Manufacturer and Vice President of Stationery Producers, Chand Sanieh Telegram, 14 September 2025.