FREE SCHOOL BOOKS FOR MINORITY SCHOOLS

Hurriyet
June 24 2009
Turkey

ANKARA – The Education Ministry will begin distributing textbooks
in other languages free of charge to minority schools this academic
year. The decision was made after an Armenian-origin citizen, Varujan
Turac, sent a petition to the presidency requesting that minority
schools in the country be provided textbooks in languages other than
Turkish free of charge. Minorities in Turkey are defined under the
terms of the Lausanne Treaty.

Turac had initially applied to Parliament seeking free textbooks for
the Armenian community. In February 2008, he also sent a petition
to the presidency that read: "Our state has been distributing free
textbooks for our 15 million students. Due to the non-publication of
Armenian textbooks for the Armenian student community of around 3,000,
they have to use photocopies to study in Armenian. If our state wishes,
it can fix this disgraceful situation. Please forward my letter to
our president." The presidency forwarded the letter to the Education
Ministry, which passed it to the publications wing of the ministry.

On Jan. 8, the ministry decided to distribute free textbooks in
languages other than Turkish to minority schools for the upcoming
academic year. It stated that the cost for the ministry would be 58,000
Turkish Liras.The issue was discussed at a meeting Monday between
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and European Union ambassadors
in Ankara. "We will start implementing the same process in minority
schools that we do in other primary and secondary schools," Erdogan
said.