The Turkish government last week made a decision to perform an administrative reform of revolutionary proportions: closing the country’s police academies and training schools, which have become the stronghold of Gulenists.

Under the plan, which comes as part of efforts to purge Gulenists entrenched in the state, Turkey’s security establishment will undergo a fundamental overhaul. The Police Academy’s Security Units Institute, which trains senior police cadres, is to be shut down and replaced with a Police Commanders Training Center. The Police Academy itself will be completely dismantled over time. The plan will also affect police vocational colleges, which are to be transformed to police vocational training centers. The Sabah newspaper reported the plan as “closing down the dens of malice.”

The reform package, outlined after a review of practices in 10 European Union countries, was to be adopted before the end of the current legislative year. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued instructions that the overhaul be put into practice as soon as possible.

In comments to Al-Monitor, a source close to Erdogan provided details on a blueprint submitted to the prime minister. The document envisages three stages in changing the process that shapes the careers of police officers and commanders, the source said. The most important leg involves a fundamental overhaul of police academies. The report describes the Security Units Faculty, the prime training center for police commanders, as a key institution. The faculty has long been the main target of Gulenists and other groups seeking to entrench themselves in the police. According to the proposed changes, the Security Units Faculty, which trains police commanders on a four-year boarding program, would be replaced with a Police Commanders Training Center with a one-year academic program.