BY TUFAN TURENC
HURRIYET- Columnist Tufan Turenc comments on the religious high school issue. A summary of his column is as follows:
Turkey should mobilize and direct all of its resources to modern education and immediately close the religious high schools (imam hatip). Due to the efforts of certain vote-seeking politicians, there are more religious high schools than are really needed. Although these schools use the Education Ministry’s curriculum, students there clearly receive an anti-republican education. We see examples of this every day. Since 1972, these schools have admitted female students, in so doing diverting their original aims. After we made eight years of education mandatory, the religious middle schools closed and there was a concomitant drop in interest in the high schools. Last year the number of students attending these schools plummeted from 300,000 to 70,000. If mandatory education rises to 12 years, the high schools will be shuttered as well. Although everything was ready for this development, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government delayed this project in order to block it.
To revive these high schools, the government has prepared a law under which graduates of religious high schools would be able to enter all university faculties. Towards this end, the ruling party wants to eliminate the Board of Higher Education (YOK). It wants students who received a largely religious education to be able to enter universities as students and lecturers. If the religious high schools are closed, no vacuum will ensue, because two hours per week of ‘religious culture and ethics instruction’ is included in the primary school curriculum. The same course is taught at high schools for one hour a week. This period is sufficient for imparting information. For this reason, the AKP’s assertion that ‘our children are unable to learn religion’ doesn’t square with the facts. In addition, families who consider this education insufficient can send their children to Koran courses attached to the Religious Affairs Directorate. In addition, students who wish to do so can enter religious faculties after high school. If the religious high schools are closed and turned into normal schools, Turkey would solve this problem and students who attend these schools wouldn’t face mistreatment.