Kemal IRMAK
PRESIDENT GENERAL of the EĞİTİM-SEN – TÜRKİYE

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The bleeding wound of Türkiye is the state of education and the country with the education policies implemented. Especially during the AKP government and in particular with the practices of the Minister of National Education Yusuf TEKİN, education has turned in- to gangrene. As the Scientific and Public approach to education has moved away, there is no problem-free area left in education. Where lawlessness, injustice and illegality prevail, one cannot talk about democratic values and democratic, secular and scientific education. Because the right, law, justice, equality, respect for differences, love for nature and human beings can all be fostered through your understanding of education. When you take education away from these values and center it on marketist and religious teaching, the measure of everything becomes money and unscientific religious criteria based on dogma. They have turned religion into an important apparatus to deceive society and distract it from the truth. You can see the practices of this apparatus at every level of education (from pre-school education to university).

With the education policies implemented, they have made it meaningless to be an individual, to be a society, and to carry human, moral and conscientious values. However, education is the most important apparatus for internalizing values such as equality, freedom, justice, individual rights, social responsibility, etc.

„When the principles that are the cement of societies and hold them together are broken down and all the higher values of humanity such as culture, ethics, democratic values, education, law and justice are destroyed, societies collapse, hope for the future is lost,
everything stinks and in time everyone gets used to this smell and even becomes indifferent to it. The individuals who compose that society do not enjoy life and no one, especially young people, can have hope for the future. The meaning of being an individual and a society becomes obsolete and loses its essence.“ The ideas in the paragraph are a summary of the famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s work titled “Societies of Anomie”. I believe it is not so foreign to us. After the transition to a one-man regime, there is no constitution, no law, no legislation, no ethics, no inclinations, no democratic values and institutions. Can there be critical and scientific education where there is no law, legislation, ethics and dem- ocratic values? No! Anomie becomes society. And that social order has destructive consequences.

Students in the 4-6 age group, who are in the concrete learning period, are being given Koran courses. In many kindergartens, pre-school education is given until noon, but after noon the classrooms in these schools are turned into nursery classes and religious ed-
ucation is given. Koran courses are offered in almost all primary schools. In secondary and high schools, elec- tive courses are added to compulsory courses, and a curriculum with an intensive religious education is implemented. Within the scope of the ÇEDES
Project, all religious foundations and associations, especially the Presidency of Religious Affairs, which are not in conflict with the government, are all roaming the corridors of schools. In order not to offend the small partner of the government, they also give space
to its youth organization in these corridors It is as if they are all Nobel prize winners for their work in science.

With the Education Model for the Turkish Century, analyzing and analytical thinking about human beings, life, the world and the universe has been eliminated. Philosophy courses have been severely limited. However, Philosophy is the beginning of all sciences. Evolution has been removed from the curriculum. Evolutionary processes are explained, but it is not called evolution. Meanwhile, in religion and spirituality courses, the number of hours of which have been increased and the number of compulsory and elective (compulsory) courses has increased, the information that “there is an extraordinary order in the universe and that there is a creator of this order” is frequently expressed. Of course, it is not difficult to understand what is in- tended. The following perception is intended to be planted in everyone. There is only one truth: the creation. There is a war and a challenge against science, scientificity, secular and scientific education and secular life.

When we express, write and say these things, they manipulate it as “disrespect and attack on people’s beliefs”. No! We respect everyone’s beliefs. In a secular country, however, no belief can be used by the state and the government. A particular form of belief cannot be imposed on people, on students in schools. The lifestyle and rituals of a belief cannot be displayed in public spaces in a way that puts psychological pressure on others.

Everyone’s right to live their faith is guaranteed by law. It cannot be forced on people, it cannot be brought into public spaces. This is the requirement of secularism.

In fact, the cost and consequence of declaring war on science is clear. Defeat… Whenever there has been a conflict between science and religion, science has emerged victorious from this conflict. This is because science is not dogma, scientific understanding is measured and investigative; it does not claim to know the whole truth, nor does it argue that even what it knows best is the whole truth. There are thousands of examples of this in history, and it is impossible that this is not known.

On the one hand, to consolidate society with the ambition to stay in power. On the other hand, to use faith to cover up certain impurities, to misdirect the target and to make others look guilty. Today, the government uses this very much. Because the truth makes people, especially those in power, very anxious.

This anxiety has reached such a large scale that not a day goes by without operations and investigations being launched against those who exercise their democratic rights. Seizing the will of the people, silencing newspapers, investigating journalists. Detentions and arrests of members and executives of legal political parties. Operations against opposition groups are being carried out with wave after wave. Under such an anti-democratic climate, is it possible to talk about democratic education and scientific education?

The Ministry of National Education – General Directorate of Personnel – issues a letter dated 29/01/2025 to be delivered to all employees. The summary of the letter is as follows; „If you stop work again, think about the consequences. When we stop work, we are obstructing children’s right to education. This is said by the Ministry, which violates the right to education of many segments (poor, secular) with the marketist and religious education hey implement. The government and the Ministry of National Education ex- aggerate this so much. 30 years ago, when there was not even a trade union law for public laborers, even the de fac- to-legitimate union activities carried out within the scope of the struggle for trade union rights and freedoms were not intimidated in this way. Now there is a law, there are international convenions. But the ministry and the government say they do not recognize the law.

They used beliefs to keep everyone under control. The government, which effectively uses faith to make people consent to all that is happening and to make them obey, uses stick policy where this is not enough. The govern- ment is wagging its finger at its own public employees and education laborers.

On the other hand, none of the problems of education have been solved and structural problems continue to in- crease. The number of students pushed out of education (in National Education and Universities) has reached the highest level of the last three years. The commercialization of education continues to increase. Student safety is under threat while student exploitation continues in MESEMs. Nearly one hundred thousand “PAID TEACHERS” are working for slavery-level wages. In- equalities among teachers continue to deepen with the ÖMK. One out of every four children remains hungry at school all day long. The ministry, which does
not see all this as a violation of the right to education, says that stopping work is a violation of children’s right to education.

However, there has been a serious objection by many segments of the society against the anti-democratic, unjust, unlawful and fascist practices implemented by the government, the presidency alliance and the palace on the segments they consider their opponents for a long time, the oppression, which became more and more visible with the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu on March 19, has raised serious objections. Even in this process, the Ministry of National Education launched a purging movement in the project schools and continued its moves to complete the transformation process with teachers, who are important subjects in the field of education. However, this time, high school youth started to organize protests in schools against the government and the Ministry of National Education. We hope that the government understands this rejection and objection from high schools students to university youth, from pensioners to farmers, and realizes that they must go. Otherwise, the scale of the disaster they are dragging the country into will continue to increase.