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Turkish judiciary halts school firings

Turkey’s top administrative court has canceled provisions that laid the ground for the purge of some 8,000 principals in public schools and their replacement with government partisans.
High school students wearing Guy Fawkes masks take part in a protest against the education policies of the ruling AK Party as a tram drives by in Istanbul February 13, 2015. Education is the latest flashpoint between the administration of President Tayyip Erdogan, and secularist Turks who accuse him of overseeing creeping 'Islamisation' in the NATO member state. Parts of some regular schools have been requisitioned to create more places for students in "Imam Hatip" religious schools championed by Erdogan, w
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Education has become one of the Turkish government’s main playgrounds. Over the past 13 years, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had five education ministers, with the incumbent, Nabi Avci, presiding over arguably the most chaotic era Turks have ever seen in the education system.

Last year, Avci introduced the Transition from Elementary to Secondary Education (TEOG) system, which involves a centralized nationwide exam and is intended to determine which high schools students attend after 8th grade. In the ensuing confusion, many students found themselves at imam-hatip religious schools — which teach the Quran and train Muslim clergy — usually against their wishes. Even the grandson of Turkey’s Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva landed in an imam-hatip school, which was not even in Istanbul but in a district outside the city. Outraged parents, whose children were placed in schools dozens of miles away from their homes, launched a campaign called "Hands off my child."

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