Brain Drain in Iran - History

History

According to at least one source, Iran had no significant emigration or brain drain to wealthier countries before the Islamic Revolution. Emigration from Iran is said by one source to have started in earnest with conscription for the Iran-Iraq War. The Islamic government's need for fresh troops and the high mortality rate of those troops led to the flight of draft-age Iranian men to other countries.

Another factor may have been the cultural revolution, a part of the Islamic revolution. On 12 June 1980 the Cultural Revolution shut down Iran's Higher Education system for over a year to completely overhaul and Islamicize it, purging many students and faculty. Nonetheless, the flight abroad of educated Iranians was commented on as early as Oct 31 of 1980, when its importance was disparaged by the founder of the Islamic Republic in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini:

"They say there is a brain drain. Let these decayed brains flee. Do not mourn them, let them pursue their own definitions of being. Is every brain with - what you call - science in it honorable? Shall we sit and mourn the brains that escaped? Shall we worry about these brains fleeing to the US and the UK? Let these brains flee and be replaced by more appropriate brains. Now that they (the Islamic Republic) are filtering, you are sitting worried why they are executing ? Why are you discussing these rotten brains of lost people? Why are you questioning Islam? Are they fleeing? To hell with them. Let them flee. They were not scientific brains. All the better. Don't be concerned. They should escape. is not a place for them to live any more. These fleeing brains are of no use to us. Let them flee. If you know that this is no place for you, you should flee too."

The trend continued during the Iran-Iraq war, and after a post-war relative calm, picked up once again during the unprecedented incursion of the clerical establishment in Iranian universities, the last firm bastion of Iran's reformists. In November 2005 a cleric became chancellor of the University of Tehran, replacing Dr. Faraji-dana. Hojjatol Eslam Abbasali Amid Zanjani (عباسعلی عميد زنجانی) holds no academic degree, and is known for his strong ties to Ayatollah Khomeini. This is the first time ever that Iran's clerical establishment replaces the traditional academia to head a major academic institution. He has however written several books and has served on the faculty of the College of Law as an expert on Islamic Jurisprudence.

Such trends are thought to be accelerating what many see as Iran's largest exodus of talented faculty, students, and researches to western Europe, Canada, and the United States. The lengthy list of Iranian chairs and directors of academia in these countries is arguably a sound index of this reality. Iran's Brain Drain has become a focus of the media both domestically and internationally. Some blame an impoverished job market (which in turn is blamed by many on western imposed Economic sanctions), while others blame a notorious tightening social system. As a symptom of this, in 2006, Iran's president promised to eradicate all universities from what he called "the liberal and secular influence".

A report by The Washington Prism in Jan 2006 claims that the International Monetary Fund considers Iran ranked highest in Brain Drain among "developing" countries, with an estimated 180,000 people exiting Iran per year. IRNA reports the figure to be 200,000.