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Erdogan Islamizes education system to raise 'devout youth'

Religious education may become compulsory in primary schools in Turkey following the transformation of hundreds of secular schools into religious education establishments.

Students of Tevfik Ileri Imam Hatip School eat and chat during a break in Ankara November 18, 2014. Turkey has seen a sharp rise in religious schooling under reforms which President Tayyip Erdogan casts as a defence against moral decay, but which opponents see as an unwanted drive to shape a more Islamic nation. Almost a million students are enrolled in "imam hatip" schools this year, up from just 65,000 in 2002 when Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party first came to power, he told the opening of one of the s
Students of Tevfik Ileri Imam Hatip School eat and chat during a break, Ankara, Nov. 18, 2014. — REUTERS/Umit Bektas

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