Ali-Asghar Fani

Ali-Asghar Fani was born in Tehran in 1954. He earned his secondary diploma in mathematics at Dr Nasiri High School in Tehran. He then studied civil engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Tehran, taking bachelor's and master's degrees, and later completed a doctorate in public administration at Tarbiat Modares University, where he went on to teach as a member of the Faculty of Management.

Fani spent almost his whole career in Iran's education system. In 1980 he became educational deputy of the education office for Tehran's District 16, and in 1981 its head. In 1985 he was appointed director general of education for Kurdistan province, and from 1985 to 1989 he served as an educational deputy at the Ministry of Education.

From 1989 to 1993 he was deputy at the humanities faculty of Tarbiat Modares University, and from 1993 to 1997 cultural deputy of the Martyr Foundation. He then held a run of senior posts at the Ministry of Education, including deputy for planning and human resources and deputy for secondary education, during the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami. He also headed the cultural commission of the secretariat of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution and the secretariat of the Council for Education.

In 2005 he ran the ministry as acting minister from late August to 9 November. In 2009 he headed the teachers' campaign office for Mir-Hossein Mousavi's presidential bid.

In August 2013, after Parliament rejected President Hassan Rouhani's nominee Mohammad-Ali Najafi, Fani was named acting Minister of Education, and on 27 October 2013 deputies confirmed him with 185 votes for, 53 against and 24 abstentions. His tenure brought repeated clashes with conservative deputies over his appointments and over teachers' pay, insurance and staffing. He received four parliamentary yellow cards between April 2014 and January 2016, and on 24 June 2015 survived impeachment by 167 votes to 76, with 13 abstentions. He resigned on 19 October 2016 in a cabinet reshuffle and later served on the Supreme Council of Education.

Fani kept his family life out of the public eye. English Wikipedia records that he had two children. He remained an academic at Tarbiat Modares University after leaving government.

Ali-Asghar Fani died on 5 November 2026 (14 Aban 1405 in the Iranian calendar), aged 72. His death was reported that evening by Mashregh News, ILNA, ISNA, Khabaronline, Tabnak and Shargh. No cause of death was made public, and funeral arrangements were to be announced later. The secretary general of the Assembly of Teachers of Islamic Iran, issued a message of condolence describing him as an esteemed teacher and one of the influential figures of Iranian education.

Fani is remembered as a career educator who rose from a district education office to lead the ministry, and as one of the most contested ministers of Rouhani's first government, defending his reformist appointments through four parliamentary warnings and an impeachment vote that he survived. Tributes from teachers' groups after his death emphasised his decades of service to the school system and to teachers.