Resolution on Defending Teachers’ Rights and Public Education in Iran
Proposed by: Coordinating Council of Iranian Teacher Trade Associations (CCITTA)
Notes with grave concerns that in Iran
Brutal repression against society and the teaching profession has intensified over the past year. This has included:
During last year’s protests, the violence resulted in the deaths of 15 teachers and the tragic loss of at least 250 students.
88 teachers that were detained and 30 education workers who were put on trial, while a teacher was shockingly sentenced to death twice.
At least 250 documented and direct violations of teachers’ rights that have been committed by security agencies, the Ministry of Education, and the judiciary, including the fabrication of judicial cases, dismissals, removal from service, and the revocation of professional ranking.
Rising inflation and severe economic hardship have placed an enormous strain on teachers’ livelihoods. The lack of job security has forced some teachers to leave the profession and has undermined decent working conditions and sustainable job security for education workers. Female teachers, like all women, face systematic and multilayered ideological, administrative, and security-related repression and are denied equal professional and trade union rights.
The right to public, free, equitable, and non-ideological education is continuously violated. Despite Iran’s linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity, the right to education in one’s mother tongue is not respected, and female students face twofold discrimination. At the same time, the rapid and ever-expanding privatisation of schools continues to undermine public education and threaten the right to free and equitable education. Poverty, inflation, and severe economic hardship further restrict equal access to education and pose serious barriers to the realisation of the right to public education.
The security and continuity of education in times of crisis are fundamental rights for all. Yet, around 200 students have been killed during Israeli and US attacks on Iran, while schools, including a school in Minab, have also come under attack.
Schools have been used as political tools or, under the pretext of war and without adequate infrastructure, may be forcibly shifted to online education. Repression and security pressure against teachers and students, particularly during protests, put their lives, physical safety, and mental well-being at risk, disrupting education in the process.
Energy shortages, inadequate educational and digital infrastructure, environmental crises, and natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes further threaten the continuity and quality of education, as well as students’ safety, during times of crisis.
Affirms that
Trade union rights are fundamental democratic rights. The independent voice of education workers must be heard and strengthened, not silenced through judicial persecution, executions, and systematic repression. All education workers, including female teachers, must enjoy equal rights to professional and trade union activity, free from discrimination and ideological, administrative, or security-related pressure.
Quality, free, and equitable education must be accessible to everyone worldwide. Realising this right requires a healthy planet, global peace and security, economic and social security, safe schools, adequate educational infrastructure, and decent work and sustainable job security for all education workers.
The right to public education must always be protected and defended, particularly in times of crisis. Today, interconnected environmental, economic, social, and political crises have severely disrupted public education through poverty and inflation, war, the repression of protests, energy shortages, and natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes.
The 10th Regional Conference urgently calls on the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to
Stop the systematic repression of independent trade union organisations; end the detention, dismissal, and fabrication of administrative and judicial cases against trade union activists; immediately halt and annul all sentences issued against teachers, including prison sentences and, with utmost urgency, death sentences; annul all sentences issued against education workers on national security grounds; and release all imprisoned teachers unconditionally.
Recognise and guarantee teachers’ legal right to organise independently through the “Coordinating Council (CCITTA)” and its member associations, in accordance with international labour standards and International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 87.
Become a signatory to the “Safe Schools Declaration”, ensuring that schools remain safe spaces and zones of peace, ending the military and security interventions in educational institutions which will guarantee the physical and psychological safety of students and teachers.
Provide adequate, secure educational infrastructure, including the infrastructure required to ensure continuity of education during crises and energy shortages.
Stop the escalating commercialisation and privatisation of education and fulfil the government’s commitment to providing free, high-quality, equitable public education for all children.
Recognise the right to education in one’s mother tongue alongside the country’s official language, eliminate linguistic, cultural, religious, gender-based, and geographical discrimination, and guarantee equal access to education.
Provide decent wages, appropriate working conditions, and sustainable job security for all teachers and education workers to address the severe cost-of-living crisis and the erosion of education workers’ livelihoods, ensuring that no one is forced to leave the teaching profession due to a lack of job security.
Immediately end all systematic and discriminatory repression of female teachers on ideological and compulsory-hijab grounds, as well as any administrative or security-related pressure against them.
Encourages the EIAP Regional Committee and member organisations to
Communicate to their governments to exert immediate international and diplomatic pressure on the Government of Iran and, through United Nations, UNESCO, and International Labour Organization (ILO) mechanisms to demand:
the immediate release of detained education workers;
the full annulment of all sentences issued against our colleagues, with death sentences requiring urgent action;
the cessation of repression against independent trade union organisations;
guarantees of teachers’ fundamental and trade union rights, as well as children’s right to education.
Mobilise global solidarity campaigns under the slogan “Organising for Power” to monitor and amplify international attention to the conditions of teachers and students in Iran and violations of their rights, ensuring that their fundamental rights, lives, and safety remain central concerns of the international labour movement.
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