After his graduation from Cukurova University’s psychological counseling and guidance department, Muhammed Can wanted to work in a public school. The young Turk, an avid sports and arts lover, passed three pedagogical exams and was expecting to be finally recruited when the July 15 coup attempt interrupted the process.

As part of massive purges after the putsch, the government suspended 28,000 teachers. Though the crackdown was meant to uproot followers of Fethullah Gulen, the accused mastermind of the coup, thousands of Kurdish teachers and others belonging to trade unions aligned with the opposition were also caught in the net. The government announced it would recruit 20,000 new teachers to fill the vacancies, but it also introduced a new element to the recruitment process: an interview after the written exams.

Here is how Can recounted his interview to Al-Monitor: “There were three interviewers and they were very polite. One even complimented me, saying, ‘We are going to have a handsome teacher.’ I picked one of the envelopes, which contained two questions from my domain. I was delighted because those were subjects I knew well. While I was answering, one of the commission members interrupted me and asked, ‘Do you fast [during Ramadan]?’ I was surprised. I said, ‘No, I don’t,’ and their attitudes changed thereafter. Though my field is psychology, they asked me a question about museums before ending the interview. I needed 60 points to pass, and they gave me 45. So I couldn’t get the job.”

Can’s case is not an isolated incident. According to the Education and Science Laborers Trade Union (Egitim-Sen), which has the largest membership of teachers in Turkey, questions about religious and political leanings are systematic, designed to determine whether candidates are supportive of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Some candidates, for instance, have been questioned about their views on the nationwide anti-government protests in 2013 and whether they took part in them, while others had to explain how they view reverent references to Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan or what they think of the call to prayer being performed in Kurdish rather than Arabic. The interviewers wanted to know the civic society groups the candidates may belong to, the newspapers they read, the prep school they attended ahead of university entrance exams and how they viewed the July 15 coup attempt. Some candidates even had to describe their feelings about Tarik Akan, the iconic Turkish actor who died last month and was a vocal AKP critic. But the question that made the most headlines was the one about whom the candidates think of when they hear the word “reis,” which means "chief" or "captain" and is used by AKP supporters to denote President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.