Iran's education minister teaches lesson to country's powerful publishers
Iranian education minister’s campaign against the country’s unchallenged educational book publishers seems to be getting him top marks among the public.
Mohammad Bathaei, Iran’s controversial education minister, can finally claim some victory in gathering bipartisan support for his campaign against the country’s educational book publishers. During his two years in office, the 55-year-old former teacher has managed to ban supplementary books from schools, claiming that they are “detrimental” to the school curriculum. These books are one of the main sources of income for private educational book publishers.
Bathaei also announced, on Jan. 2, the partial end of "the konkur," Iran’s highly competitive national university entrance exam. This, too, will deliver another blow to the publishers who earn millions in test preparations for the multiple-choice exam that is taken by millions of high school graduates every year, after intense preparations.
![An Egyptian woman walks with children in front of the Aziz Al Masri primary school on March 25, 2018 in central Cairo, ahead of the March 26-28 presidential election.
Egypt's military said on March 24 on Twitter that it was making "intensive preparations for the armed forces to secure the presidential election" on March 26-28, after a bombing killed two policemen in Alexandria. / AFP PHOTO / FETHI BELAID / The erroneous mention[s] appearing in the metadata of this photo by FETHI BELAID has been modified in](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2018/05/GettyImages-937684852.jpg/GettyImages-937684852.jpg?h=a5ae579a&itok=30uJDdhd)
