Stressing the need for Islamization of the educational institutes and universities, Imam in a series of historic messages said that the university is origin of all transformations and elevations and the destiny of this nation is shaped by university’s fellows.
According to Imam, Imam also said that the charter and fate of a nation is determined by the university.
From Imam’s viewpoint, the Islamization doesn’t mean that seminary subjects should become part of the universities’ curriculum.
Imam however made clear in historic remarks that lecturers, professors and graduates should decorate themselves with moral excellence and professional ethics alongside their professional capabilities.
Imam further explained that the country’s educational system should not be dependent on West and universities should be independently able to fulfill needs of the nation in all spheres and arenas.
The text of historic speech in this regard comes as under:
Speech
Time/ Date: 17: 30 pm, April 21, 1980 [Ordibehesht 1, 1359 AHS/ Jamadiath-Thani 5, 1400 AH]
Subject: Explanation about the reformation of the country's colleges
Audience: From the various classes of the people, students, and Islamic association members of the colleges and the institutes of the Muslim students across the country
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Explaining the concept of "Islamizing universities"
Salaam!(Greetings) to you, the great nation of Iran.Salutations to you the Muslim nation of the world. Salaam to the academic ones. Salaam to the respected students- the soldiers of Islam. It is necessary for me to make a remark to you. You should know what our aim by reformation of the colleges is. Some imagined and wrongly presumed that there are two categories of knowledge or science- one Islamic and the other non-Islamic. For example: engineering- Islamic and non-Islamic. Physics-Islamic and non-Islamic. So they objected that the science or the knowledge cannot be Islamic and non-Islamic. Some wrongly concluded that the propose of making the colleges Islamic is to teach only the sciences concerning relation such as jurisprudence, science of principles and the interpretation. In other words, it will become like schools of old days. These are errors they committed in conception and comprehension. Or they indulge themselves into such mistakes. What we want to say is this: Our colleges are affiliated ones. Our colleges are those of imperialists. Our colleges produce the students fully westernized. The professors mostly are westernized. And they train our youth in the same trend. Our point here is that the colleges we have are not useful to our students. It is more than fifty years that we are having colleges and they run on the budget heavy which is the cost of the hard labor of this nation. In a span of fifty years, we could not become self-sufficient in the sciences that are the product of these colleges. After fifty years if a sick is to be cured, the doctors say he should be sent to England. It is fifty years we have colleges. But a doctor who could be able to attend a sick or a patient we have none as they themselves admit. In spite of having a college, which is a need of a nation, yet we are in need of the West. We say that the colleges should fundamentally be changed. We do not mean that the Islamic sciences to be taught there. Science is of course in two categories- Islamic and non-Islamic. But this is not our point. What we mean is to show us the output or outcome of these colleges running since fifty years or even more. We say that our colleges are the hurdles in way of progress of our youth- the sons of this soil.
We say that our colleges have become a field of battle of propaganda. Our youth, supposing, if at all attain knowledge but they fall short of good breeding and a desired appreciable growth concerning moral and manners. They have no Islamic training at all. They go to college only to obtain a piece of paper (by name of a degree) and to go to be a parasite upon the nation.
The college is not in line with the needs of the nation nor does it respond to the necessities of the country. Generations and our youth who are most dear to us are now a waste. Their vigor and energy goes in vain. During these fifty years, our power has had been a loss or it was utilized to the benefit of the foreigners. Teachers of our schools are not Islamic teachers. There has had been no training alongside the education. Therefore, we do not have a man committed to his nation or not prefer and persuade his own selfish motives among the college fellows. Our colleges should be in the service of the nation. This is what we say. So our colleges should fundamentally undergo a change. The teachers in schools and professors in colleges mostly are at the disposal of the West. Our youth are brainwashed. A corrupt and profligate training they give to the youth we don't say that we oppugn the present new sciences. We don't say that the knowledge is of two kinds which some debate either ignorantly or deliberately. We say that our colleges have no Islamic conduct or manners. Had our colleges Islamic manners, they would have not turned into a battlefield of beliefs which is seathful to the country. Had the colleges been Islamic, these stramashes which are too heavy for us would have never happened. All this is because they have no knowledge about Islam nor do they know Islam.
Sahifeh, vol21, Page:210