The Baháʼí Institute for Higher Education (BIHE), is a unique open university in Iran, which has been incorrectly portrayed as an underground university, established by the Baháʼí community of Iran in 1987 to meet the educational needs of young people who have been systematically denied access to higher education by the Iranian government. Currently, through a main faculty in Iran and an Affiliated Global Faculty from universities around the world, BIHE offers a total of 56 undergraduate and graduate programs in Sciences, Engineering, Business and Management, Humanities, and Social Sciences. More than 116 universities in North America, Europe, and Australia have thus far accepted the BIHE's graduates directly into programs of graduate study at the masters and doctoral levels. BIHE has a decentralized and fluid structure and uses a hybrid approach of offline and online delivery methods which has enabled it to grow under unusual sociopolitical circumstances. Despite numerous arrests, periodic raids, several imprisonments, mass confiscation of school equipment and general harassment, BIHE has continued and even expanded its operation. BIHE has received praise for offering a non-violent, creative, and constructive response to ongoing oppression.
Context
Persecution of the Baháʼís of Iran
Since its birth in the 19th century, the Baháʼí community of Iran has faced different forms of persecution including hostile propaganda and censorship, social exclusion, denial of education and employment, confiscation and destruction of property, arson, unjustified arrests and imprisonment, physical and psychological torture, death threats, arbitrary executions and disappearances. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 intensified the persecutions and made Baháʼís – the largest religious minority of the country – the target of a systematic state-sponsored campaign of repression. Within this ongoing campaign, over two hundred Baháʼís have been executed; thousands more have been imprisoned, have lost their jobs, been denied their pensions, been expelled from schools and universities, been denied health care, had their personal property plundered, and had their grave sites defiled. The modern persecution of Iranian Baháʼís now continues in its fourth decade. In the 2016 annual report to the UN General Assembly, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, refers to the Baháʼí community of Iran as "the most severely persecuted religious minority" of the country.
Denial of the right to education The denial of the right to higher education is a tool wielded by the Iranian government on many whose ideology contradicts or threatens the authority of the ruling clerics; however, the Baháʼís are the only group to face pervasive class denial of this right. The efforts of the Iranian government to deny Baháʼís the right to education is seen by Baháʼís as part of its coordinated efforts to eradicate the Baháʼí community as a viable group within Iranian society.
Shortly after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, large numbers of Baháʼí students, ranging across the entire education system from primary through secondary and university level, were expelled from schools and blocked from continuing their education. Similarly, Baháʼí professors and faculty members were dismissed from all universities and academic institutions of the country. In the 1980s, partly in response to international pressure, primary and secondary school children were allowed to re-enroll. However, up to today the government has maintained the ban on the entry of Baháʼí youth into public and private colleges and universities.
The official decree barring Baháʼí students from admission to public university was issued in 1981. That year universities established a new admission system where only individuals who identified themselves with one of the four religions recognized by the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran – i.e. Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism – were given admission. The systematic expulsion of students and faculty had become clear to Baháʼís by 1983.supra note 113, at page 259 of
In 1991, the government reiterated that policy, in a private memorandum prepared by the Iranian Revolutionary Council and approved by Ayatollah Khamenei which states that "The Government's dealings with [the Baháʼís] must be in such a way that their progress and development are blocked. ... They can be enrolled in schools provided they have not identified themselves as Baháʼís. ... Preferably they should be enrolled in schools which have a strong and imposing religious ideology. ... They must be expelled from universities, either in the admission process or during the course of their studies, once it becomes known that they are Baháʼís."
Over the years, various ploys at different stages of university admission process including application, entrance examination and enrollment have been used to exclude Baháʼís from public and private colleges and universities. From a small number of Baháʼí students who have been able to register and start their studies at universities, the majority have been expelled at some point before graduation.
Formation and developments
After failed attempts to persuade the government of Iran to admit qualified Baháʼí students to universities, the Baháʼí community of Iran rallied its limited resources to make higher education available to its youth and young adults. In a collective effort, a small core of professors, lecturers and researchers who had been discharged from their jobs because of membership in the religion worked on developing an informal network of higher education. These efforts culminated in the establishment of the BIHE – initially known as the "scientific program" in 1987.
Gradually, the program expanded and took on a more formal character. By the mid-1990s, it had turned into an extensive institute which became known as the "open university" or Baháʼí Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). With the advent of the internet and increasing assistance from collaborators abroad, BIHE's curricular standards were bolstered and a wider range of majors and concentrations was introduced.
Despite tremendous logistical constraints and the Iranian authorities' attempts to shut BIHE down through raids, arrests and imprisonment of key faculty and staff, the university has been producing impressive results, with many of its students continuing to Master and Doctoral programs in universities in other countries. Today, through the work of approximately 955 faculty and administrative staff, BIHE offers 17 undergraduate, 16 graduate and 4 associate degree programs in sciences, engineering, business and management, humanities, and social sciences. Additionally BIHE offers 11 vocational programs, 3 one-year foundation programs, and 5 graduate certificate programs.
Mode of operation
In its early days, BIHE functioned like a correspondence school with faculty and students exchanging lessons and assignments via the state-run postal system. Since professors could not deliver lectures openly, they prepared lecture notes and compiled textbooks for distribution to the students. Upon noticing that the government had been examining and intercepting the mail packages to disrupt the university's work, the BIHE devised its own courier service through volunteer messengers, who collected assignments from all the students in a locality by motorbike, sorted them and then delivered them to the professors.
Over time, with the expansion of its operation, the university started to organize small-group classes in private homes. These were complemented with specialized classrooms and laboratories organized in privately owned commercial buildings near and in Tehran. The BIHE system also featured a network of special depository libraries in the private homes of Baháʼís around the country. Numbering more than 45, these libraries enabled students in each district to obtain the necessary textbooks and course literature and material.
Since 2005, the BIHE has undertaken a modernization and expansion program, which includes the full incorporation of the internet into its activities. As a result, currently BIHE operates on a model of hybrid learning which includes both traditional offline methods as well as increasing online components. Traditional classroom and seminar presentations provide important learning spaces for BIHE students. In addition, many courses have evolved from exclusively offline events into hybrid ones. The incorporation of online components into BIHE's delivery method has allowed the university to expand its courses and programs by using international faculty.
Locations The university does not have a physical campus. It operates using a hybrid model including both traditional face-to-face and online classes. There is no specific location for in-person classes. They are rotating and held at the homes of students and other members of the Baháʼí community. Occasionally some classes are held at rented isolated locations. The hosts voluntarily offer their homes for in-person classes despite the threats and risks involved. Specific locations in Tehran and its vicinity, such as a floor of a residential home or a private commercial entity are prepared to be used as laboratories. Many security measures are taken to avoid attracting attention. These laboratories have been raided numerous times by the government and sealed. Each time they have been reinstated at a different location after some time has passed.
Distinctive features
Creative and constructive response to oppression
The establishment of the BIHE has been regarded as a creative and non-violent response to the ongoing campaign of the Iranian government to deprive Iranian Baháʼí youth of access to higher education. Rather than losing their agency in the face of oppression, Iranian Baháʼís have been actively constructing their own institution and empowering their youth through education. It has provided a constructive alternative to organizing politically against the authorities or feeling victimized.
BIHE has been praised for the model it offers to minority groups in self-preservation, coping, survival and thriving under discriminatory sociopolitical circumstances.
Decentralized and fluid structure The institute is decentralized and its functions reach the entire country through a combination of in-person and online classes with the former being held at the homes of students, faculty and other volunteer members of the community. In each province or region, local administrative assistants perform certain logistics and managerial tasks. Parts of the application and admission process as well as student advisory services and conducting examinations are also carried out throughout the same network on the local level. Lecturers construct their courses free from the prescriptions of a single organizational body and a networks of teaching assistants collaborate in the actual delivery of education. Independence of lecturers from administrators, teaching assistants from lecturers, and students from all – creates adaptability in the BIHE, and this facet of its character has been preserved and complemented by the ongoing process of modernization and the shift toward online learning.
Volunteerism and service