Editorial note:
This article, “4+4+4
Dinselleşen Eğitim Sisteminin Zararları”
(Part
1 and Part
2) was written collectively by Özgür
Düşünce Hareketi (Free Thought Movement) in Turkey. It makes a
thorough analysis of the recent transformations in the Turkish
education system. We, Out for Beyond, decided to take this
opportunity to provide an account of the educational reforms,
referred to as 4+4+4 in Turkey (meaning that primary education,
secondary school education and high school education will take four
years each). The original text is intended for the Turkish audience,
we therefore shortened the text and added footnotes in the
translation for the English-speaking readers.
We are thankful to
Broyd
who carefully went over the translation, made essential corrections, and read the proofs of the text.
Note on
translation: The original article frequently uses a term, which
literally translates as “religionization”.It is in fact a
well-established political term in Turkey, which is used as an
antonym to “secularization”. It is not the same as reshaping the
education system (or the society in general) in a dogmatic,
non-evidence-based way; because the process is considered as a
planned introduction of religious ideology into the social and
political realms. It is also not Islamization, since it encompasses
many aspects (such as creationism in biology textbooks) that are not
restricted to Islamic ideology. Therefore, we chose to keep the
literal translation “religionization” within quotation marks.
Hundreds of topics
arise under the issue of “Turkey's education problems”. The most
recent of those is the new system, referred as “4+4+4”, which
prescribes an education system of separate schools, each taking four
years. However, in order to understand this last reform and its
singularity, we must first take a broader look at the education
system in large and how it operates.
It is clear that the
AKP
government pushes the education question as part of the
“religionization” of the country as a whole. A combination of
many factors led AKP to rise and enabled structural transformations
in several items. This can be seen as AKP's desire as well as its
promise. In accordance with the regional changes in the Middle East,
the state paradigm must have changed too, and the arrow of change
pointed against existing progress.
AKP's policies have
always accorded with this wind of change. Hence, the intervention in
the education sector started far earlier than the most recent
reforms. Some concrete indicators are as follows: In contrast to the
huge need for teachers, many unemployed teachers are put aside in the
annual assignments whereas thousands of religion teachers are
employed – and many of them take administrative roles in the
schools. The curricula have been constantly modified in favor of
creationism. The Imam Hatip High Schools
were taken off from vocational school status. There is an
increasingly common discourse of “prayer rooms for each school”.
The personnel of TÜBİTAK
were replaced according to government's ideological priorities. In
the rectoral elections in the universities, the president Abdullah
Gül has not complied with the election results and assigned rectors
according to other political preferences.
Although AKP had the
opportunity to demolish the education system in Turkey, the
foundation of this transformation was laid by previous governments.
The greatest damage done to Turkish education system was due to the
military intervention of 12 September 1980. This coup d'etat inserted
religious education into primary schools and secondary schools, a
strategic step towards a more religious society. The 1982
Constitution states in Article 24 that
“Education and
instruction in religion and ethics shall be conducted under state
supervision and control. Instruction in religious culture and moral
education shall be compulsory in the curricula of primary and
secondary schools. Other religious education and instruction shall be
subject to the individual’s own desire, and in the case of minors,
to the request of their legal representatives.”
This article not only
immersed a harmful element into the formal educational curriculum but
also paved the way for small children to be registered into religion
courses not controlled by state authorities.
Let us now take a deep
breath and ask ourselves: Why is the “religionization” of public
education harmful?
It is a well known
pedagogical fact that education should be given according to the
cognitive and physical development of the child. With this in
mind, we have a three-fold answer to our question.
1) Between ages of 6
and 11, children are capable of internalizing only concrete concepts.
They can find simple solutions to simple problems, understand
commands and exercise the necessary actions. What they cannot do is
to contemplate abstract concepts and take actions about them.
In this period, one
can talk to a child about all concrete things such as apples, toys
and cars, but the child cannot make sense of concepts such as god,
heaven, hell, demon and so on. Therefore, such a child would not have
a healthy cognitive development because s/he would grow up in a
terrifying environment where someone who watches her/him all the
time, making notes of every single action and which s/he cannot see
nor touch nor hear, an entity which will punish her/him for all
her/his faults. The child would further grow strong guilt feelings
whenever s/he does something (intentionally or unintentionally) that
the religion orders her/him not to do. This would have deep
psychological consequences.
After age 11, on the
other hand, the child enters a critical stage in cognitive skills
where s/he develops critical thinking skills. Therefore, the teaching
of dogmatic, unquestionable knowledge would hinder this development.
2) Another harmful
aspect of the “religionization” of education was deliberately
introduced by the policy makers. The 1982 Constitution defines the
religion course as “Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge”,
thereby implying that morality is a concept directly linked to
religion. Via compulsory religious courses, the borders of “morality”
are framed and restricted by a particular sect (the Sunni
interpretation) of a particular religion (Islam). This approach not
only indoctrinates the unfounded claim of “no religion means no
morality” but also undermines the education of morality and of
religion.
3) As a direct
consequence of secularism, public education should see to it that
each individual is provided with the critical thinking skills that
would enable her/him to reach her/his own conclusions about the world
and give her/him the possibilities of self realization.
We have been observing
the harmful consequences of the “religionization” of education
for a long time, especially with the theory of evolution. This
“spiteful of science” attitude will increase with the recently
introduced religion courses. For instance, the new “Basic Religious
Knowledge” course includes phrases like “the fine tuning in the
universe”, “perfect human”, “intentional creation” as
chapters' morals. These statements are not supported by evidence, and
in fact contradict with it. The same course aims at teaching that
“the aim of the creation of human is to worship Allah”. It is
further clear that whenever there is conflict between the content of
this course and other courses, the values and the information in the
other courses will be censured.
The
new education system surpasses the 1982 Constitution. Not content
with the so-called “Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge”
course, the system introduces “Arabic” in primary school and
“Basic Religious Knowledge”, “The Holy Koran” and “The Life
Of the Prophet Mohammed”, thereby teaching religious knowledge
continuously. We should emphasize that by religious knowledge is
meant the theological knowledge of Islam's Sunni sect.
One example of this approach can be seen in the textbook for the
course “The Life Of the Prophet Mohammed”, aimed at ninth grade
students:
“By
linking chastity with faith, Our High Prophet states that pudicity
and faith are inseparable. On this issue, he spoke 'As a matter of
fact, pudicity and faith are holistically united. If one disappears,
the other disappears as well.' As can be understood from this hadith,
pudicity and faith are closely connected to each other. When one is
nonexistent, there is a danger for the other to vanish too.”
Yet
another problem of this system is that the Koran will be read in
Arabic for the course “The Holy Koran”, as in the religious
courses enforced by the state, due to the ridiculous claim that the
book has its own language. However, for someone to understand the
Koran or any other book (independent of whether it is considered holy
or not) it is essential that one reads it in a language that one is
competent in and at an age when one can grasp its content. It is
clear that the (elective) Arabic course would not suffice for the
students to comprehend the book properly and therefore what is
expected from them is that they memorize it. This is manifested
publicly several times. One instance is that the 85th page
of the instructor's book for “The Holy Koran” course gives hints
on “some principles on how to make surah apprehension
easier” where it is explained how the students can easily
“memorize” those surah's.
Moreover, Ömer Dinçer, the Minister of Education, confessed in an
interview
that the students “would not understand what they read”:
“But
the Parliament declared: The teaching of Koran and the Life of Our
Prophet. We will teach it in secondary school and in high school. We
will teach how to read the Koran like Turkish. After all, Arabic is
an elective course. We will not teach Arabic. It is a
different issue to read Koran based on the Arabic alphabet in the
Arabic language. This means, the child will learn how to read a word
written with Arabic letters, but the thing s/he will read will be
Koran. We will create a curriculum. S/he will read but will not
understand. After all, the majority of those who read the Koran do
not understand it, they read it as a holy book.”
The
“religionization” is not the only problem arising from the new
4+4+4 system. At first glance, we notice the following: The system
lets children of age 5-5.5 enter the primary schools, when they are
not physiologically ready to hold pencils nor cognitively prepared to
understand and implement commands. As a consequence, primary
education is now reduced, in practice, to three years. Furthermore,
by fifth grade, the classes will be given by branch teachers,
resulting in reallocation and unemployment of many teachers. Also,
the early start to schooling without any infrastructural preparations
will result in overly crowded classrooms. We would like to give some
examples of complaints in order to make the point clearer.
The
Education Workers' Union released a declaration,
emphasizing that the separation of primary and secondary education in
a manner that is not based on pedagogical principles would imply an
increase in child employment and child brides. The way is now legally
cleared away for the seclusion and forced marriage of female
children, as child brides are generally of age 13, 14 and 15.
According
to an interview published in haber.sol.org.tr on September 21st,
2012, Ertan Uysal, the chairman of the Education Workers' Union in
Tokat, made the following remark:
“...
while the mere existence of religious culture courses in private
schools is controversial, it is a big problem to introduce forced
elective courses on religion. This imposition of religious education
on students who would primarily need courses such as arts, music and
sports resembles the paradigm of the Middle Ages.”
Much
earlier than this interview, Hürriyet newspaper made a news item
on the letters sent to the Ministry of Education by the parents. Here
are a few items from those letters:
“ -
I don't want my 5-year old child to get on and off the bus by himself
to reach home.
-
I don't want my child to be pressed by the class teacher who is
forced to finish the annual curriculum.
-
I don't want my 5-year old child to be open to the same risks as the
students of age 12-13.
-
While 7-year old children are having difficulties, I don't want my
5-year old child to start primary school.
The
“religionization” of education is a big problem. When this
transformation is accompanied by unhealthy, inconvenient practices,
it may give rise to a social disaster. In order to prevent this, it
is urgently needed to sweep away religious ideologies, not only from
education but from all levels of the state affairs.
As
Özgür Düşünce Hareketi, we believe that several reforms should
be made.
- Mixed-sex
education should never be questioned. The religious separation of
the two genders is one of the most important causes of gender
inequalities and male violence. Furthermore, children that grew up
in an environment where men and women are categorically separated
would have difficulties in making sense of transgender identities
and would be conditioned to transphobia.
- Religious
knowledge should be presented in the context of the history courses,
under the title of history of religions and then one item being
Islam. If religion teachers will be trained, they should get proper
pedagogical formation.
- Imam
Hatip Schools should be abolished, as they give the teaching of the
practices of a selected religion.
- The
so-called elective but practically compulsory religion courses
should be abolished. Religious practices should not be taught to
non-adults.
- The
new regulations on the dress code that promotes the imposition of
headscarves on female children should be withdrawn.
