Neo-Liberal Education with an Islamic Sauce

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government does not have a policy on children, but that does not stop it from forcing its policies on children. One area where this is particularly obvious is the education as organised by the Ministry of Education (MEB).

Compromises... 

One of the most overused phrases since the general election of 22 July has been that of "compromise". Those who feared that there would be tensions between the AKP, which received serious support from the voters, and the army, which had from the beginning assumed opposition duty, called for "compromise" from both sides.

So, for instance, central-right Köksal Toptan was chosen for the office of Parliament Speaker, names who were associated with the social democratic movement entered parliament on the AKP list, Ertugrul Günay, a former general secretary of the Republican People's Party (CHP) was given a cabinet post (as Minister for Culture and Tourism).

In return, Abdullah Gül, who had been vehemently opposed by the army and behind it the CHP, representing the laicist section of society, was elected President.

Mainstream media returned to other issues

It seems that the waves created by Chief of General Staff Yasar Büyükanit with a press statement on 12 April have now calmed. The mainstream media has followed suit by returning to the Kurdish question which had been neglected. Now it is back to headlines such as "Baydemir [mayor of Diyarbakir] has overstepped the mark" and "Terrorist's body transported by municipality".

While everyone was focusing on Gül, they forgot that controversial Hüseyin Celik, who had been predicted to lose his cabinet seat in the "cabinet-toto", has remained in his old post of Minister of Education.

Celik's past "achievements" give us a good idea of what teachers and their pupils can expect in the new school year:

Teachers: When teachers tried to improve their personal rights and the trade union Egitim-Sen protested, Celik commented on 23 November, a day before "Teachers' Day" is celebrated: "Teachers work two hours a day. They conspire with the administration and go home. He declared the trade union protest illegal. The ministry's decision to make appointments without exams and to allow administration a greater say in the appointment of rectors and vice rectors was overruled by the Council of State.

Neo-liberalism: Celik's solution for "equal education for everyone" was to pour ministry funds into private schools. Prime Minister Erdogan said, "let the state withdraw and the private sector take over education". This draft was vetoed.

Islamic impact: In 2005, Celik suggested a change in regulations, which would have allowed students who had studied one term at an open access high school to count as graduates from a high school. According to trade union Egitim-Sen, this suggestion was made in order to allow students of the religious Imam Hatip schools to enter university in fields other than that of theology more easily.

The "Creation Atlas", which tries to counter Darwinism with a religious explanation, was handed out to high school teachers for free.

When it was found that students at a high school in Istanbul were praying en masse during school hours, the director of education said, "There is freedom of religion and conscience".

Among a list of "100 basic books" which the Ministry recommended, it emerged that some of them had been "Islamicised". Thus for instance, Pinoccio's carpenter father Gepetto was changed to Galip Dede, and Heidi's grandfather Alm to Alp.

Pupils: As a solution to the increase in violence at schools, Celik suggested an increase in "isolation" of students. Experts decried this as both pedagogically and psychologically unsound.

At the OKS exam, which determines what high school pupils can go to, school certificate grades were miscalculated, which resulted in hundreds of students being placed lower than they deserved.

The curriculum has changed, but children still have to take the compulsory Religious Education class.

No admission of mistakes

In last week's introduction of the new government programme, Erdogan did not mention any of this. Quite the opposite, he spoke of making pre-school education more common and increasing the rate of school attendance to a hundred percent.

It is easier to agree on aims like that than on the wisdom of letting Hüseyin Celik remain in office... (EÜ/AG)