A report published by Aftab Yazd entitled ‘Good-bye Arash’ addresses the migration of a seven-year-old Iranian genius child to the Netherlands that provoked widespread reactions. The striking point about the reactions is that they came from families having talented children who seek to send their genius children to Europe in order for those children not to waste their capabilities due to the failed and dysfunctional Iranian education system. In contrast, the officials displayed no reaction to Arash’s migration and took no action to prevent him from migrating. According to the report, after publishingش the story of Arash’s migration in the newspaper, a mother reached out to the newspaper’s correspondent, asking desperately for guidance in order to enable her seven-year-old genius son, who was promoted to the fifth year of primary school, to join a prestigious school in Europe. The correspondent of Aftab Yazd told her that the newspaper has nothing to do with the admission of Arash to a Dutch school and that indeed Arash’s parents are the ones who sent their son to that school. Another mother contacted the correspondent and demanded that he interview her gifted son, who draws beautiful paintings, especially of animals. She also said her son is adept at field research, but no school or college agreed to offer the necessary facilities for him. She made several efforts in this regard. She wanted to speak about her son to the news media in order to open the door for her talented son to get out of Iran. In the same context, a mother of another child sent a message to the correspondent saying, “Regarding your report on Arash Amzarsh, I want to know whether you have information about the conditions for communicating with schools overseas? What are the documents that should be submitted? Please tell me if there is a means or a place where I can translate and certify his certificate…My son’s capabilities are going down the drain,” she said.
There were other similar messages. The interesting part of the story is that many of these messages were also sent to the family of Arash from the families who were doing their best to send their genius or talented children outside Iran. But there is an important observation: Iranian officials showed no reaction towards this matter. They did not contact the newspaper’s office nor did they contact Arash’s family in order to prevent this genius child from leaving Iran.
