As the new school year kicks off on Monday in Turkey, some Kurdish parents will for the first time have access to Kurdish-language education for their children.
In a small but significant step towards more cultural rights for Turkey’s estimated 15 million Kurds, subjects such as mathematics and geography will be taught in three private pilot schools in Kurdish, according to three Kurdish civil organizations providing the teaching. Some 300 pupils have enrolled so far.
But this isn’t enough, the NGOs say. They are calling for Kurdish parents to boycott Turkish-language state schools in the first week of the school year, and demand public Kurdish schools.
“We need Kurdish schools to be built with our tax money… But what the state doesn’t do for us, we do by ourselves,” said Dilek Adsan, co-chairman of Egitim-Sen, an NGO on educational issues, in Diyarbakir, the biggest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey.
“Running schools by NGOs cannot be a long-term solution. And private schools would only be available for the elite few,” Ms. Adsan said, referring to the relative poverty of the Kurdish-majority southeast.
The new schools will open amid rising unrest following a violent clash on Thursday between Kurdish residents and military police in southeastern Lice. A newly-built Kurdish school in the village of Kerwas, or Yalaza in Turkish, which The Wall Street Journal visited recently, was the touch paper for the standoff.
Clashes broke out when military police tried to enter the village at the crack of dawn. Over two dozen armored vehicles, local officials say, were confronted by residents blocking the road leading to the village. Shots were reportedly fired at the convoy.
Turkey’s Education Minister Nabi Avci said the incident “smells of provocation”, while state-run Anadolu news agency reported that the military police convoy was there merely to provide security for officials on an inspection visit.
Mazhar Bagli, a Kurdish member of the executive committee of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said the school may face demolition because they didn’t seek approval from the local branch of the ministry of education.
“There is no longer any problem in opening a Kurdish school and offering Kurdish-language education, but the villagers should fulfill the formalities,” Mr. Bagli said.
Fettullah Celik, a former village resident and town council member in Lice, said the villagers had not sought official permission because of a deep lack of trust in the officials. Military police interrogated the residents about the school several times, claiming the involvement of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the funding of the school. The residents deny this, saying the funds came from local benefactors and parents.
As part of the peace talks, Kurdish private education became legal in March. Until then, only elective language courses for teaching Kurdish were allowed in Turkish schools.
But Kurdish-language education in public schools would require the Turkish constitution to be amended. As it stands, Turkish is the country’s only official language to be used in schools and public offices, and the debate over changing the provision is ruffling the feathers of Turkish nationalists.
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(via WSJ Blogs)
