Back on Feb. 1, 2012, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a speech to his party’s senior members that raised alarm and sparked heated debates over the future of secular education and the secular state in Turkey. Responding to criticism by main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan said: “He says I’m dividing Turkey [into] the devout and the godless. I've never spoken of devout and godless people. I’ve spoken about raising a devout youth. I stand behind this. Mr. Kilicdaroglu, how could you expect us to raise an atheist generation? This could be your own objective, but not ours.”
Not surprisingly, Islamizing the education system would be Erdogan’s first step in “raising a devout generation.” Three years later, the topics of discussion and decisions taken at last week’s meeting of the National Education Council show that the government has, indeed, made significant strides in Islamizing education.
The National Education Council is the highest advisory body to the Ministry of National Education, tasked with examining education issues and making recommendations accordingly. About 600 people, said to represent the education bureaucracy and institutions as well as trade unions, teachers and pupils’ parents, took part in the five-day meeting in the Mediterranean city of Antalya. The council’s decisions become official only after they are approved by the ministry.
Reminiscent of the marching style of Ottoman military bands, the council moved by taking two steps forward and one step back on new initiatives to Islamize education. First, a pro-government teachers trade union, Egitim Bir Sen, submitted a proposal to end the obligatory coed education system with the stated aim of “minimizing security problems stemming from attraction to the opposite sex.” The justification was not a religious one, but Turks had not until then been aware that “security problems” of such a nature existed in their country. Proposals were then submitted for religion classes to begin in the first year of primary school and to “teach values” to kindergarten children. Another proposal called for teaching Islamic values in kindergartens. At present, compulsory religion classes begin in fourth grade. They are taught under a provision of the constitution, which is a legacy of the 1980 military coup.
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