 have protested a new education curriculum released by the Ministry of Education, arguing that it seems more like a political text reflecting reactionary views than an educational program.){kind=link}
A group of lawmakers from Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have protested a new education curriculum released by the Ministry of Education, arguing that it seems more like a political text reflecting reactionary views than an educational program.
CHP MPs on Friday marched from the parliament to education ministry headquarters in Ankara in protest of the “Century of Turkey Education Model” for primary and secondary education announced by the ministry last week.
The new curriculum underwent a reduction of about 35 percent in content, resulting in the limitation of the evolution theory to secondary biology and the complete removal of integrals from mathematics.
This marks the fourth overhaul of the curriculum in the last 22 years under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. Standardized exams and educational systems have undergone numerous changes during this period, with the education minister replaced nine times.
The protesters, including the party’s deputy group chairman Murat Emir and vice chair Suat Özçağdaş, issued a press statement in front of the ministry building.
Emir said they reject the new curriculum because it is designed to undermine secularism and erase the revolutions of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, to serve the AKP’s “ideological obsessions.”
“Our children need scientific, secular and modern education,” Emir said, adding that the primary goal of every education minister during AKP rule has been to distance education from its national character and tie it to religious and reactionary ideologies.
Özçağdaş also emphasized that the new curriculum resembles more “a political text reflecting a series of ideological obsessions” rather than a program prepared within the framework of educational sciences.
Meanwhile, the Artı Gerçek news website reported on Thursday that Alevi civil society organizations also criticized the AKP for the new curriculum, arguing that it aims to detach education in Turkey from its secular and scientific foundations and align it with the party’s own ideology.
Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association President Cuma Erçe told Artı Gerçek that Alevism is not an interpretation of any religion or any other belief, but a belief that is unique to itself.
“The faith they describe [in the religious education textbooks] has nothing to do with the essence of our faith,” he added.
While religious education remained compulsory from fourth to the twelfth grade and class hours increased in the new curriculum, Alevism will only be studied under the title “Sufi interpretations in Islamic thought” in twelfth-grade classes.
Erçe further said that the association does not accept the new curriculum because it is “far from science and reason” and appears as “a party’s propaganda tool.”
Hacı Bektaş Veli Anatolian Cultural Foundation President Ercan Geçmez also underlined that they don’t want Alevism to be taught in religion classes; on the contrary, they want religion classes to no longer be compulsory.
Turkey is a majority Sunni country, with some in the conservative and religious population viewing Alevis as apostates; therefore, people adhering to the Alevi faith generally avoid revealing their beliefs in public out of fear of facing discrimination or social alienation.
Alevis follow a heterodox Islamic tradition that separates them from Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Some view it as a cultural identity as much as a religious faith.