Erdoğan says his party is yet to establish 'intellectual power' over country

Photo: Presidency

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During its 18 years in power, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has failed to achieve enough progress in education and to establish its "intellectual power," according to President and AKP Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

"We need to make a total education and training reform," he told the opening ceremony of a new complex at the Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul.

He said Turkey's education system is based on passing on materialistic information to children.

"Our priority is to raise our children properly, starting with the family. This requires a total education and training reform. All we need is to raise people who know their values well, and protect their culture and history," he said.

Underscoring the significance of intellectual independence, the president said, "Intellectual independence underlies both political independence and economic independence."

Erdoğan further said that Turkey needed innovation that is inspired from its traditions: "The western world has been inspired by our roots in many fields, from medicine to sociology. We, on the contrary, have completely forgotten or excluded our own roots and having considered its derivatives as a basis, tried to find a path and a direction for ourselves for two centuries." 

"In other words, we are struggling in an intellectual crisis. However, it is intellectual independence that lies at the essence of both the political and economic independence," he added.

"[Our people are] receiving education but we don't have enough qualified workforce in most areas that would satisfy us. We thankfully have a young population but we can't implement our vision of civilization properly.

"Our media has the most modern infrastructure but it doesn't reflect our voice. In science, arts, culture, we are facing similar problems. We can't explain ourselves to the world even about the issues where we are right.

"This is why I'm of the opinion that we have yet to establish our intellectual power. Nobody should be disturbed in the search for intellectual power. We expect everyone to contribute to this quest." (AS/VK)