Afghan, Pakistani leaders praise Turkish schools at Ankara summit
Date posted: February 13, 2014
ANKARA
The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan have praised Turkish schools in their countries, saying they offer top-quality education.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made their remarks in response to a question at a joint news conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gül following a trilateral summit in Ankara that focused on security.
“Afghan children are offered high-quality education services. We are very happy about that,” Karzai said, while Sharif said the schools “are doing a perfect job.”
“Their education standards are very high. I had the chance to visit the school in Lahor,” he said, adding that the schools also strengthen ties between Turkey and Pakistan. Both leaders’ remarks were translated into Turkish.
Turkish schools, established by entrepreneurs affiliated with the Hizmet movement, have been under the spotlight in the wake of a corruption investigation that shook the Cabinet, with the government accusing the movement of plotting against it in collaboration with foreign partners.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has instructed Turkish ambassadors to tell the “truth” — which, in his view, is that the graft investigation was the result of a foreign-backed plot to sabotage Turkey’s international standing — raising concerns that he might be targeting Turkish schools abroad.
Gülen: The Ambiguous Politics of Market Islam in Turkey and the World
The Hizmet Movement is Turkey’s most influential Islamic identity community. Widely praised throughout the early 2000s as a mild and moderate variation on Islamic political identity, the Gülen Movement has long been a topic of both adulation and conspiracy in Turkey, and has become more controversial as it spreads across the world. In Gülen, Joshua D. Hendrick suggests that when analyzed in accordance with its political and economic impact, the Gülen Movement, despite both praise and criticism, should be given credit for playing a significant role in Turkey’s rise to global prominence.
Truth and reconciliation in post-Erdoğan era
One way to repair the damage dealt by the Erdoğan government in the last couple of years and to provide some form of closure for the dark period of Erdoğan’s third term in government is to set up a truth and reconciliation commission. Without discounting the role of the criminal justice system, a truth commission can be utilized in a complementary role to help citizens move on with their lives in Turkey after colossal wrongdoings in the government.
International community’s Erdoğan problem
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has returned to his agenda of political Islamism since the 2011 elections even though he had rejected it in the past, and he quickly set out to implement his plan to purge the Hizmet movement, a plan he had made long ago.
Turkish schools
About 15 years ago, I attended an international academic conference in a state located within the former Soviet geography. These conferences give us the chance to make on-the-spot observations about changes around the world. There were two Turkish high schools in the city: a state school, run by the Turkish Republic under bilateral agreements, and a private school run by Turkish entrepreneurs inspired by the ideas of well-respected Turkish-Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. I visited both and talked to students and teachers.
UNESCO Global Monitoring Report and Turkish Schools
The Turkish schools around the world offers practical perspectives and practices in redefining “the human” and his needs, reintegrating him into society, overcoming the physical and methodological obstacles to education and leading a robust performance in the path to global peace. Although the report correlates the education crisis at first glance with poverty and social background, education remains as the number-one problem, in a varying extent, in the developed countries as well. What needs to be done is to convey how the Turkish schools are tackling or minimizing many educational problems and, finally, to find out what aspects of the schools’ methods can apply to public schools.
An Indian professor’s reflections on Erdogan’s visit to India, crackdown on Gulen movement
There has been no evidence of any terrorist activity by the followers of Gulen in any part of the world including Turkey. In India, they have been running their institutions: schools, coaching Institutes, and dormitories for more than 15 years, but none has been accused of any kind of terrorism and crime.
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