The Turkish government has instructed municipalities to cease the operation of existing daycare centers and to halt plans for the opening of new ones, in a move that has attracted sharp criticism from opposition politicians and government opponents for being another attempt to obstruct the services offered by opposition municipalities, the Euronews Turkish edition reported on Monday.
The directive was prompted by a letter from the Ministry of Education, which claimed that inspections had identified daycare centers operated by municipalities that offer activities similar to those in officially registered, private early childhood education institutions.
Citing a ruling from the Constitutional Court in 2007 that invalidated the provision allowing municipalities to establish daycare centers on the grounds that it ran against the constitution, the ministry argued that such facilities violated the law and must be shut down.
The ministry’s order comes at a time of growing pressure on opposition municipalities, strengthening fears that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan might exert financial pressure on opposition-run municipalities to prevent them from providing municipal services following his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) election loss in March, prompting accusations of politically motivated interference.
In the March 31 local elections, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) emerged as the leading party for the first time in 47 years, securing 37.7 percent of the vote, maintaining control of key cities and securing substantial gains in other regions, while the AKP came in second, garnering only 35.4 percent.
The CHP’s election victory also led to concerns that Erdoğan might resort to measures that will hinder operations of the opposition municipalities or discredit them in the eyes of the public in retaliation for his party’s election loss.
İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is seen as the biggest political rival of Erdoğan and was able to win re-election in March by a wide margin against the AKP candidate in a huge disappointment to the president, harshly criticized Education Minister Yusuf Tekin over the directive targeting daycare centers operated by municipalities.
İmamoğlu challenged the ministry’s authority during a speech on Monday, saying that any attempt to close the facilities would be met with resistance.
“You send as a letter saying that you will close down the daycare centers. We just don’t care about your letter. Come and try to shut them down. Come and shut down the 150 daycare centers. I am waiting, if you dare,” said İmamoğlu, referring to the government.
The mayor said aside from the thousands of children and families who benefit from these centers, they provide employment to 1,500 people, 97 percent of them women.
CHP leader Özgür Özel also reacted to the order during a speech at a party meeting on Monday, recalling that the AKP’s mayoral candidates in İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir provinces each promised to open at least 100 new daycare centers for their cities if they won the March elections.
“Now, after losing the election, they want to shut down the very daycare centers that were opened by those [opposition mayors] who kept their promises. This nation will not be crushed by this injustice,” Özel added.
Current Environment Minister Murat Kurum, who was the AKP’s mayoral candidate for İstanbul in the March 31 local elections and was defeated by İmamoğlu, also made such a promise in his election campaign and said a daycare center would be opened in every neighborhood if he was elected.
Journalist İsmail Saymaz said on X that the government seeks to shut down the daycare centers because it views this service by opposition-run municipalities as a failure of its own.
He said at a time when hundreds of thousands of families cannot afford to send their children to daycare due to financial constraints, municipalities are stepping in by offering free daycare centers, providing much-needed support to low-income families.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Presidential Communications Directorate denied government plans to close down the daycare centers run by the municipalities, saying that the focus was not on shutting down the daycare centers but on ensuring that they operate “in accordance with their intended purpose and regulations.”
“These institutions cannot engage in educational activities included in the preschool education program, meaning they cannot operate as kindergartens or daycare centers,” the statement said.
In the wake of growing criticism, Minister Tekin also made a statement later in the day and said his ministry did not call for the closure of the daycare centers but rather that the letter only concerned the operation of kindergartens, accusing the CHP of manipulating the facts.
İmamoğlu immediately contradicted him and posted a photo of the official letter on X, which openly referred to the operation of daycare centers.
Milli Eğitim Bakanı, “gönderdiğimiz yazı kreşle alakalı değil anaokulu ile alakalı” demiş. İşte resmi yazı burada. İlk satırdan itibaren belediyelerin kreşlerini dile getiriyor.
Resmi yazıya kreş yazıp, sonra “ben kreş demedim anaokulu dedim” demek bu akla yakışır. Ayrıca son… pic.twitter.com/xATQrTcPYj
— Ekrem İmamoğlu (@ekrem_imamoglu) November 25, 2024
Pre-school education is not mandatory in Turkey, and public kindergartens and daycare centers are still fee-based.
The Evrensel daily reported, citing the 2023-2024 Ministry of Education statistics, that only 54.79 percent of children aged 3 to 5 are enrolled in preschool programs — a figure far below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average.
The data also reveal a troubling decline in public preschool availability. In 2024, 399 public daycare centers were closed, reducing the number of enrolled children by 4.8 percent — a decrease of over 80,000 students compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, private institutions dominate the sector, accounting for 46.05 percent of all early education facilities, but their high costs make them inaccessible to most families.