Students of Turkish school in Iraq learn four languages

A student at one of the 30 Turkish schools in Iraq answers questions from his teacher in front of the board while other students follow. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Kürşat Bayhan)
A student at one of the 30 Turkish schools in Iraq answers questions from his teacher in front of the board while other students follow. (Photo: Today's Zaman, Kürşat Bayhan)


Date posted: December 17, 2012

YONCA POYRAZ DOĞAN, ARBIL / SULAIMANIYA

In Turkey, education in one’s mother tongue other than the official language, Turkish, has long been an issue of hot debate, but in the Kurdish region of Iraq, students have been graduating from Turkish schools having learned four languages.

“In this area, people know two or three languages. In our schools, they learn four languages — Turkish, Kurdish, English and Arabic,” said Talip Büyük, the general director of the Fezalar Education Company, which has opened 30 schools in Iraq, 18 of them in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the rest in various Iraqi cities, including three in Baghdad.

According to Büyük, there is no reason why a child cannot learn his or her native language in school.

“A society is enriched when it has the tools to teach its citizens their mother tongues,” he added.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) of Turkey and its predecessors have been calling for the right to education in the mother tongues of Turkey’s minorities for a long time, while the majority in Parliament opposes it on the grounds that granting the right to citizens to receive an education in their mother tongue would divide the nation.

Kurdish began to be offered as an elective language course in Turkish schools at the beginning of this academic term following the latest reforms in the educational system.

But many educational experts in Turkey say that an elective Kurdish course is far from meeting the demands of Kurds and falls short of solving an important part of the Kurdish problem.

The first Turkish school was opened in Arbil in 1994, Büyük said, adding that they were in Iraq when nobody was interested in the war-torn country.

“Those were years of war and conflict. The world had imposed an embargo on then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and Hussein had put an embargo on the Iraqi Kurdish region. No one from Turkey was here save intelligence officers and the Turkish Red Crescent,” he said.

The schools’ first graduates entered prestigious university departments such as medicine and engineering.

“Our graduates were highly successful. Recently, the top 10 graduates in all of Iraq were from our schools,” he added.

Now there are approximately 12,000 students in Turkish schools in Iraq.

Ishik University in Arbil, which sits on a large campus, is building a faculty of dentistry, a much-needed branch in the region.

Selahaddin Ayyubi College in Sulaimaniya sees the best graduates in the Kurdish region as it is a highly selective school.

Brightest Halabja students on scholarship

There is a special school in Halabja, a Kurdish town in northern Iraq. It opened three years ago with 100 of the brightest students, and ever since has accepted 100 more each year.

“The massacre in Halabja was the bloodiest of Saddam Hussein’s massacres,” Büyük said in reference to the March 16, 1988, attack by the Saddam Hussein government, which dropped chemical gas canisters on the town. At least 5,000 people died as an immediate result of the chemical attack, and it is estimated that a further 7,000 people were injured or suffered long-term illnesses. Most of the victims of the attack on the town of Halabja were Kurdish civilians.

“We were thinking about what to do for the people of Halabja, and we decided to establish schools for free. Students are on scholarship, and we pay for the salaries of the educators. We teach four languages in the schools,” he said.

Source: Today’s Zaman 16 December 2012


Related News

Families Of Afghan-Turk School Students Hold Protest In Kabul [against Turkish Gov’t]

Families of Afghan-Turk Schools students on Sunday held a protest meeting in Kabul and called on the Afghan government to rescind its decision to hand over the Afghan-Turk schools to the Turkish government.

Scholars to discuss tolerance at Hizmet Movement conference in Taiwan

The China Post news staff — Scholars from Taiwan, Turkey, the United States and Japan meet in Taipei this weekend for a conference on the Hizmet Movement, a faith-inspired social movement that calls for tolerance. The Hizmet Movement, inspired by the teachings of Turkish native Fethullah Gulen, began in the late 1960s as an initiative […]

Largest dentistry school of Iraqi Kurdistan opened

Turkey’s Ishik University has opened the largest dentistry faculty clinic in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region. A ceremony held to mark the opening of the facilities on Monday drew the participation of high-level officials. The A-list guests at the opening included Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chairman Hüseyin Çelik, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Rosh […]

Afghan education minister recommends Turkish schools in each province

Congratulating the Turkish teachers working at the schools in Afghanistan, Minister Wardak said that they were “highly respected.” He went on to praise the teachers who “leave behind their families and their cherished hometowns, leaving wonderful cities like İstanbul and Ankara and all that is near and dear to them to serve the Afghan nation and Afghan children.”

Arbil closer to İstanbul than Baghdad

ŞAHİN ALPAY My first visit to the Kurdistan region of Iraq took place a year ago, on the invitation of the University of Duhok, to participate in an international conference on the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Awakenings. Last week I was once more in the region, this time upon an invitation […]

IFLC’s ‘colors of the world’ welcomed at European Parliament

Children from across the world who participated in the 13th International Festival of Language and Culture (IFLC) were welcomed in Brussels and performed a special show at the European Parliament (EP) at the behest of EP President Martin Schulz on Wednesday.

Latest News

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

University refuses admission to woman jailed over Gülen links

In Case You Missed It

Former US envoys to Ankara say Erdoğan doing great harm to democracy

Pineapple republic!

Turks and Egyptians tight-knit at Turkish Olympiads Egypt Finals

Bulgaria, the state sentenced to compensate Turkish journalist

British law firm hired by AK Party gov’t launches defamation campaign against Gülen movement

Erdoğan’s abstract enemies: parallel organization and superior mind

Fethullah Gülen: Turkey is being dragged into a civil war

Copyright 2023 Hizmet News