Iranian Higher Education
1- Assistant Professor, Department of Higher Education Governance Studies, Institute for Cultural and Social Studies, Tehran, Iran. , Kamali@iscs.ac.ir
2- Associate Professor, Department of Higher Education Governance Studies, Institute for Cultural and Social Studies, Tehran, Iran
2- Associate Professor, Department of Higher Education Governance Studies, Institute for Cultural and Social Studies, Tehran, Iran
Abstract: (4 Views)
Objective: Governance is a core dimension of higher education that shapes how universities contribute to societal development. In Iran, despite the creation of diverse policy capacities after the Islamic Revolution, persistent stakeholder dissatisfaction and declining university social responsiveness have produced anti-development outcomes. This study asks how higher education governance has affected universities’ capacity to support Iran’s development.
Method: Adopting a discursive perspective, the research employs a conceptual framework of conventional higher education governance approaches (state-centered, market-oriented, academic self-governance, and hybrid). Fourteen institutional and strategic documents and laws of Iranian higher education, during 1989 to 2025, were analyzed qualitatively using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis.
Results: The analysis identified the “discourse of control” as the official discourse. In this discourse the state exercises maximal authority, framing university–society relations through value rationality and subjecting them to intense bureaucratic control. The result is the ideological reduction of the university and society, hegemony of state priorities, monopolization of power, isolation of governance councils, and the dominance of form over substance which has ultimately undermined governance effectiveness.
Conclusion: Although formally resembling the state-centered approach, the discourse of control differs substantively through its ideological view of the university, multi-layered conception of the state, and isolated participation. These features place it in tension with the foundational principle of governance—the rejection of power monopoly—and align it more closely with pre-governance state oligarchy. Genuine stakeholder participation, reduced concentration of state power, and avoidance of coercive imposition of official values are therefore essential for reforming higher education governance in Iran.
Method: Adopting a discursive perspective, the research employs a conceptual framework of conventional higher education governance approaches (state-centered, market-oriented, academic self-governance, and hybrid). Fourteen institutional and strategic documents and laws of Iranian higher education, during 1989 to 2025, were analyzed qualitatively using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis.
Results: The analysis identified the “discourse of control” as the official discourse. In this discourse the state exercises maximal authority, framing university–society relations through value rationality and subjecting them to intense bureaucratic control. The result is the ideological reduction of the university and society, hegemony of state priorities, monopolization of power, isolation of governance councils, and the dominance of form over substance which has ultimately undermined governance effectiveness.
Conclusion: Although formally resembling the state-centered approach, the discourse of control differs substantively through its ideological view of the university, multi-layered conception of the state, and isolated participation. These features place it in tension with the foundational principle of governance—the rejection of power monopoly—and align it more closely with pre-governance state oligarchy. Genuine stakeholder participation, reduced concentration of state power, and avoidance of coercive imposition of official values are therefore essential for reforming higher education governance in Iran.
Keywords: higher education and development, higher education governance, social stakeholders, critical discourse analysis
Type of article: Research |
Subject:
Special
Received: 2026/05/17 | Accepted: 2026/07/1 | ePublished ahead of print: 2026/08/7
Received: 2026/05/17 | Accepted: 2026/07/1 | ePublished ahead of print: 2026/08/7
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