TURKEY DISREGARDS MINORITY RIGHTS IN SCHOOLS
By Ayla Jean Yackley
International Herald Tribune
March 16 2009
France
Nearly half of the children of internally displaced ethnic Kurds
in Turkey are unable to attend school and other minorities face
institutional discrimination in education, a report said on Monday.
Nurcan Kaya, author of the report by Minority Rights Group
International, said a failure to provide equal access to education
for children from non-Turkish backgrounds could hamper the country’s
bid to join the European Union, which has called on Turkey to expand
cultural rights for its ethnic minorities.
"The discrepancy between EU standards on education for minorities
and those in Turkey will ultimately affect Turkey’s efforts to join
the EU," Kaya said at a news conference.
"The EU should give this issue greater priority during Turkey’s
accession process," she said.
Turkey only recognises Greeks, Armenians and Jews as minorities under
a treaty that ended World War One and doesn’t afford special rights
to other ethnic or religious groups, including Kurds, who make up
about 20 percent of the population, Roma, Syriac Christians, Alevi
Muslims and others.
Millions of Kurds over the last three decades have left the countryside
in southeast Turkey for urban centres to find work and escape fighting
between the army and Kurdish separatists.
Forty-eight percent of these families questioned said they were unable
to send their children to school after moving, citing poverty as the
main obstacle, according to the London-based NGO’s report, which was
funded by the EU.
Literacy rates are 73 percent in the mainly Kurdish southeast,
compared to 87 percent in the country’s more affluent west, the report
said. Only 60 percent of women are able to read in the Kurdish region,
it also said.
Turkey has eased restrictions on the Kurdish language, which was
completely banned until 1991, and language courses are now available
at a handful of universities.
Kurdish children, as well as other ethnic groups, who attend state
school are unable to study their mother tongue, the report concluded.
Officially recognised minorities operate their own schools and are
able to teach some classes in Greek or Armenian, but are given as
little as $1 per student annually in financial assistance from the
government, said Garo Paylan of the Armenian Foundation Schools at
the news conference.
Minority schools are unable to find properly trained teachers and
updated textbooks, he said. A Turkish assistant principal employed
by the Education Ministry is the main authority at the schools.
Religious education that teaches the Sunni Hanafi creed of Islam
remains mandatory in state schools and non-adherents can only opt
out of classes if they disclose their faith, which violates Turkey’s
secular constitution, the report said.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that religion
classes in Turkey’s state schools violate pluralism in a case brought
by an Alevi father.