News

A senior Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) official has announced that the Basij militia will soon be established in Iranian elementary schools for the first time since the Islamic revolution.

The extensive plan calls for the introduction of the Basij into 6,000 elementary schools across the country, according to IRGC General Mohammad Saleh Jokar, head of the Schoolchildren and Teachers' Basij Organization. 'We want to expand the Basij's activities at the primary-school level because students are more influenceable at a young age than at other times in their lives,' Jokar told Mehr News in an interview published on Monday. 'We intend to promote and instill a revolutionary and Basiji thought process among elementary school students.'

The militia has been present in middle schools and high schools since its inception 30 years ago, but the founding law of the schoolchildren's Basij, passed by the Majlis on April 29, 1996, mandated its presence in elementary schools too. 'We had not formed Basij units in elementary schools until now because of budget restrictions, but more funds were allocated this year,' Jokar explained to Mehr news.