Baku, Azerbaijan, April 20
By Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
Iranian Education Minister Mohammad Bathaei has proposed to teach Persian and Russian in the schools of the two countries as a second language amid deepening cooperation between Tehran and Moscow to challenge the US.
Speaking at a meeting with Chairman of the Committee on Education of the State Duma of Russia Vyacheslav Nikonov, the visiting Iranian minister said that his country plans to “break up the monopoly of English as the second language” and develop students’ skills in other languages in particular Russian, IRNA news agency reported.
Earlier in January Iran banned the teaching of English in primary schools after the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the early learning of English opened the way to a Western “cultural invasion”.
The teaching of English usually starts in middle school in Iran, around the ages of 12 to 14, but some primary schools, below that age, also have English classes.
Some children also attend private language institutes after their school day. And many children from more privileged families attending non-government schools receive English tuition from daycare through high school.
The Iranian minister arrived in Moscow earlier this week to attend the Ministerial Forum on Global Dialogue on ICT and Education Innovation.
A large group of commentators suggests that Russia and Iran’s growing cooperation hints at a new Middle East order.
“Our cooperation can isolate the US,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei told Russian President Vladimir Putin last November during a meeting a Tehran.
In turn, Putin described the growing Russia-Iran cooperation as “very productive.”