Iran bans teaching of English in schools - media

Iran has banned the teaching of English in primary schools, a senior education official said.

"Teaching English in government and non-government primary schools in the official curriculum is against laws and regulations," the head of the state-run high education council, Mehdi Navid-Adham, said.

"The assumption is that in primary education the groundwork for the Iranian culture of the students is laid," the Guardian cited him as saying.

Iran’s Islamic leaders have often warned about the dangers of a "cultural invasion", and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, voiced outrage in 2016 over the "teaching of the English language spreading to nursery schools".