December 31, 2021
On the third try, the Majlis has finally approved a nominee to be President Raisi’s education minister.
Yusef Nuri won the post on a vote of 194-57-17. That gave him the support of 72.4 percent of the Majlis deputies voting.
That’s still not very impressive. It would have put him fifth from the bottom if the vote had been taken with the other cabinet nominees in August. There are 19 cabinet members.
In the August vote, Hossain Baghgoli was the nominee for education minister, overseeing K-12 schools but not higher education. Baghgoli was rejected on a 79-193-18 vote, giving him the support of only 26.5 percent of the members, one of the worst votes for a cabinet nominee ever.
Raisi waited almost three months before submitting the name of Masud Fayazi, who was defeated November 16 on a vote of 115-140-5 or only 44.2 percent support.
President Raisi personally attended the Majlis session debating Fayazi and defended him from the rostrum, so the defeat was seen as a personal rebuff to Raisi.
The president did not attend the session that approved Nuri, as Raisi was in Turkmenistan.
Speaking in the Majlis in his own defense, Nuri criticized the performance of the Education Ministry, singling out the issue of a UNESCO document promoting gender equality a document that has aroused conservatives to a mighty heat.
Nuri said the Supreme Council of the Education Ministry did not do enough to counter UNESCO 2030, and that even some of the council members supported that document.
“Those behind UNESCO 2030 will have no place in the education system,” he pledged.
“During the second phase of the revolution, we will take a leap toward a new Islamic civilization, which requires the education of a generation with a model of that new Islamic civilization,” he said.
The Rohani Administration originally approved the UNESCO 2030 document, but then rescinded that approval when conservatives erupted in fury over it as a Western plot.
