Hands off my child, Turks tell government - Al-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Tulay Cetingulec

Tulay Cetingulec

Sep 5, 2014

Turkish children sing the national anthem before their lesson at a school in Hatay April 2, 2012. REUTERS/Osman Orsal (TURKEY - Tags: SOCIETY) - RTR309SU — Turkish children sing the national anthem before their lesson at a school in Hatay, April 2, 2012. — REUTERS/Osman Orsal

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

Turkish judiciary halts school firings

Tulay Cetingulec

Tulay Cetingulec

Students, parents left in dark as Turkey scraps school entrance exam

Ayla Jean Yackley

Ayla Jean Yackley

Turkish girls attend a class at the Kazim Karabekir Girls' Imam-Hatip School in Istanbul February 10, 2010. The imam-hatip network is a far cry from the western stereotype of the madrassa as an institution that teaches the Koran by rote and little else. Originally founded to educate Muslim religious functionaries in the 1920s, the imam-hatip syllabus devotes only around 40 percent of study to religious subjects like Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence and rhetoric. The rest is given over to secular topics. To ma

Erdogan's reforms meant to educate 'pious generation'

Orhan Kemal Cengiz

Orhan Kemal Cengiz

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

Erdogan Islamizes education system to raise 'devout youth'

Kadri Gürsel