Ali Asghar Fani Retained as Minister of Education

The impeachment of Ali Asghar Fani, the Minister of Education in the 11th government, did not receive enough votes in the open session of the Islamic Consultative Assembly on Wednesday, July 3, and Mr. Fani was retained in his ministerial position. During the review of the impeachment motion, Fani managed to secure the confidence of the parliament with 167 votes against out of a total of 256 votes cast. The impeachment motion, which had 49 signatures, received only 76 votes in the open session, which was insufficient for the minister's removal. Key points of the impeachment included the minister's inability to gain the satisfaction and trust of the educational community, the lack of a serious and programmatic approach to the Teacher Training University, the minister's failure to attract government attention to the importance and role of education, and the absence of a clear and effective program for establishing a dynamic and comprehensive system for monitoring, evaluation, and continuous assessment of programs. At the beginning of the impeachment session, nine representatives spoke in favor of the impeachment, including Jabbar Kouchakinejad, Nader Qazizadeh, Mehdi Mousavi-Najad, Hamed Ghader Marzi, Farhad Bashiri, Mohammad Saeed Ansari, Mohsen Alimardani, Mahmoud Shokri, and Ahmad Aryaeinejad. After their statements, the minister provided a brief overview of his performance over the past 22 months in the Ministry of Education, followed by defense speeches from Gholamreza Tajgardoon and Gholamreza Misbahian. According to the report, after these statements, Qasim Othmani and Hossein Naqavi Hosseini also expressed their reasons for impeaching the Minister of Education. Eshaq Jahangiri, the First Vice President of Iran, had previously described the impeachment motion against Fani as 'unfair' and stated that he should be commended for his activities in the Ministry of Education. Fani was the second minister in the 11th cabinet to face an impeachment motion in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the first being Reza Faraji Dana, the Minister of Science, Research, and Technology, who was impeached in August 2013 and removed from office by a vote of the representatives. The session to review Ali Asghar Fani's impeachment was held without the presence of Hassan Rouhani, the President, and Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The session was chaired by Mohammad Hassan Abutalebi, the Deputy Speaker, and Eshaq Jahangiri, the First Vice President of Hassan Rouhani, along with several ministers and cabinet members, accompanied Ali Asghar Fani during this session.