Working parents are extremely concerned with a planned move from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government to shut down study centers, where children can spend time after school doing their homework with the assistance of educational professionals, as part of a law that will see private prep schools that help students in preparing for high-school and university tests close.
Recent statements by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aired by the ATV TV station upset, surprised and hurt me. I felt fooled and surprised, because despite the decision made by the Cabinet two days ago, the prime minister made a clear statement: “There is no way back. The draft will be reviewed.” Everybody is taking a test now; only our Islamic attitude, stance, love, tolerance, humility and style will save us.
“It’s not possible to make out of this behavior befitting a government that defends a market economy,” Seyfettin Gürsel, director of Bahçeşehir University’s Center for Economic and Social Research, told Today’s Zaman. Opponents of the government’s plan have also noted that the prep schools are a consequence of the many inadequacies of Turkey’s education system, and said that prep schools help low-income students enter university.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) referred Kütahya deputy İdris Bal — who opposed the government’s planned closure of prep schools (dershanes) — to the party’s disciplinary board for expulsion on Thursday. Bal, reiterating his opposition to the closure of prep schools, he said that such a move would violate the Constitution.
Turkish Deputy PM Bülent Arınç has described the offer of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen to hand over prep school management to the state an example of “sacrifice” and promised that the issue of prep schools will be resolved in a way that pleases everyone. “God knows that we don’t have an ambition to manage [these prep schools]; our desire is that these services don’t become the causalities of a disagreement,” Gülen reportedly said.
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has said that he will not visit Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen during his trip to the United States, amid tension between the Gülen movement and the government over the possible closure of private “dershane” examination prep schools. After a Cabinet meeting on Nov. 18, Arınç had said the government would reevaluate its work on the controversial closure of the prep schools “together with the related parties.”
As the Turkish Consulate gets ready to set up office in Hyderabad, Neeraja Murthy finds a Turkey-Hyderabad connect. Indialogue Foundation, the Turkish cultural centre acts as a hub for the 15 Turkish families living in Hyderabad. “We get together here during religious ceremonies like Eid and we organise inter-faith seminars, talks, conferences and cultural programmes. We arrange business meetings between Turkish and Indian businessmen and also organise Turkish celebrations.”
The Taraf daily reported on the written instructions sent in an email to social media coordinators at government ministries by the AK Party’s media coordinator, Burak Gültekin. The email read as follows: “Dear ministry social media coordinator, Attached please see a note on prep schools…” The attachment included templates for tweets some of which include content teasing the Hizmet movement and the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
The debate over the Turkish government’s move to shut down private prep schools is growing with a battle of words between the administration and private education representatives. Self-exiled Islamic scholar Gülen, on the other hand, asked his followers “to be resolute and not yield to despair,” in a speech posted on herkul.org, a website that broadcasts his speeches.
The government’s intentions to shut down private examination preparation centers [in Turkey] in spite of a strong backlash from educators, economists, students, parents and even terrorism experts brings back memories of the authoritarianism of the early years of the republic, when a single-party regime was in place.
Turkish Twitter users are in an uproar over a report that the government has drafted a law which would close thousands of private preparatory education centres (known as “dershanes”) across the country. The schools are reportedly a point of tension between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government and the Gülen movement that runs many of the schools.
Erdoğan fired a warning shot across the bow of the Hizmet movement, which operates some one-third of the more than 3,500 prep schools, hoping that the movement would fold under the pressure and shy away from criticizing the government on lingering corruption, the lack of bold reforms, the stalled EU membership process, the failed constitutional work, its intrusion in people’s ways of life and privacy, blunders in foreign policy and the weakened transparency and accountability in governance.
“Very few people in Turkey could deny that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government under the leadership of Tayyip Erdoğan has made a tremendous and positive transformation in the country. Now, he is on it again with his insistence on trying to close down tutorial centers that belong to the private sector. Everybody knows that with this he is trying to punish the Hizmet movement, which has resisted pledging absolute loyalty to him.
It is an open secret that Erdoğan is not targeting the prep schools, but the Hizmet movement that is inspired by the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen. People and companies that are sympathetic to the movement operate the majority of Turkey’s prep schools. Like the rest of the educational institutions affiliated with the movement, they are the most academically successful, sending students with outstanding scores to the best schools each year.