Turks divided over plans to introduce Arabic-language teaching

Turkey’s Ministry of National Education announced that as of the 2016-17 academic year, Arabic courses will be offered to students in elementary school starting in second grade. It will be offered as an elective language course like German, French and English. According to a prepared curriculum, second and third graders will learn Arabic comprehension and speaking, fourth graders will learn introduction to Arabic scripture, and after fifth grade the emphasis will be on developing basic language skills.

The ministry's decision provides an already severely polarized Turkey with another cause for division. Those who support Arabic instruction say in addition to religious reasons, it is essential to learn the language for economic, touristic, political and commercial reasons.

Veli Demir, chairman of the education union (Egitim-Is Sendikasi), which includes 50,000 members in the education sector, said, “They will compel people to select this course. Since they see Arabic as something holy they may eventually want to teach all courses in Arabic.”

Demir told Al-Monitor, "We know this government will not stop here but scrap the alphabet revolution of the republic. They increased the number of religious high school students from 70,000 to 1,200,000. They want to train voters to guarantee AKP’s future. We, on the other hand, want a generation that pursues civilization, peace and brotherhood.”