Highly educated Iranians are emigrating abroad to seek a better life in other countries as a result of the Iranian regime’s ruthless and destructive policies.

Iran’s brain drain dilemma is not a matter of today or yesterday. After taking the power, the mullahs’ regime has pursued policies that many sections of Iran’s society, including professionals, the educated, etc. were left with no choice but to emigrate to other countries.

Since the 1979 revolution, brain drain in Iran has initiated because of the reign of tyranny and repression of the regime’s former Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. During his early reign of terror, Khomeini spoke out and blamed Universities for the ‘calamities that have befallen mankind’ and in regard to many Iranian graduates who emigrated abroad back then, he said, “…To hell with it! Those who are educated, who all talk about science and civilization, let them go.”

More than four decades have passed since those days. Iran is still suffering from the elite and brain drain, and a significant part of the country’s precious human capital has left and continue to leave their homeland on a daily basis due to the ruling regime’s reactionary policies and settle down in other countries.

According to international statistics, Iran ranks 54th out of 232 countries with 1.8 million immigrants, and from 2001 to 2020, 37 percent of Olympians, 25 percent of members of the National Elite Foundation, and 15 percent of the ranks below 1,000 to succeded in the entrance exams for the universities emigrated abroad.

The head of the regime’s Medical Council, Mohhammadreza Zafarghandi said, in an interview with the state-run daily Shargh last month, that 3,000 applications from doctors had been sent to the organization to emigrate to other countries in the past year alone.

He blamed the increase in applications to emigrate abroad on problems such as long shifts, prolonged study periods, low wages, and doctors being distanced from their families. In a quote from his interview, he said that the regime leaders must ‘know that individuals, graduates, and especially the youth of the society, will migrate elsewhere if they are valued more’.

While Zafarghandi claimed the figures of emigrating Iranians were 3,000, Ali Tajernia, the senior advisor to the head of the Medical Council stated that the numbers of emigrated doctors were much higher because ‘there are about 400 Iranian dentists working in one Canadian province alone!’.

Over 145,000 people emigrate from Iran each year, of which 105,000 have a university degree, according to statistics published by Iran’s Ministry of Sciences in 2020.

The first deputy chairman of the parliament’s Education Commission, Mohammad Vahidi spoke out in December 2020 and said that each day, at least 20 scientific elites were leaving Iran and referred to Iran as a world record holder for brain drain.

Along with the increased number of doctors leaving Iran, the number of trained nurses moving abroad has also increased significantly in recent years. In an interview in May, Secretary-general of Iran’s Nurses’ House, Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam said that between 100 and 150 nurses are leaving Iran each month. However, Armin Zareiyan, the chairman of Iran’s Nursing Organization Board of Directors, claimed that the true number is three times more than what Moghaddam suggested, putting new figures at 500 nurses per month who have fled to European countries or the United States.

The Iranian regime also has the highest number of nurses dying in Covid-19 in the world, with the current figure standing at 130.