DAILY OPINIONS

The 'new system' in education or the latest version of instilling youth with AKP ideology

New system is the 'Ziya Selçuk version' of the educational counterpart of the proposition touted in recent years of raising pious, jihadist generations consistent with the goal of constructing a conservative society.

The 'new system' in education or the latest version of instilling youth with AKP ideology

How many “educational reforms” has this been since the AKP came to power in 2002? Not even experts in the field know exactly!

The day before yesterday, Ziya Selçuk, National Education Minister of the first “single-man-rule” government also joined this cavalcade.

Minister Selçuk promoted this latest system at the “What Have we Done at High School?/The Meeting to Promote the Secondary Education Draft,” couched in terms that would foster the impression that an educational philosophy lies behind it.

From Selçuk’s explanation, the new secondary system will begin to be implemented in the ninth year in the 2020-2021 educational year. The first university entrance exam complying with this system, in turn, will be held in 2024!

The minister asserts that the system they are setting up has been made in preparation for 2040. However, it is more realistic to say that Selçuk’s reform, like those of his predecessors, will not even have a lifespan of a few years.

THE HEGEMONIC CLASS’S IDEOLOGY AND POLITICS DETERMINE THE CONTENT OF EDUCATION

Most certainly in an area like education in which it takes years for a system to settle in and for its results to emerge, the reason for the system undergoing change from top to bottom every few years cannot be a lack of knowledge or competence of those heading the system or the lack of resources at their disposal.

On the contrary, it is the political and ideological stance of the power-holding hegemonic force that is decisive here.

However much spokespersons of the hegemonic force have made a slogan out of the assertion, “The issue of education is outside politics and ideology of all kinds,” the truth is the exact opposite. The aim of education is for the hegemonic class to raise new generations equipped with a mindset and knowledge that fits its own needs. And, thus, the hegemonic classes wish to bring youth up with a mindset that defends its own order and as a source of cheap labour.

That is, what education will teach is determined by the political representatives of the hegemonic classes themselves so as to achieve aims that have been set. And the education system is shaped to bring this content into practice.

THE AIM: EDUCATING NEW GENERATIONS IN THE AKP MENTALITY

So, the essential reason why a “system change” has to be made every few years as to what is to be taught and how is the incapability of the class that holds power and its political representatives to offer a secure future to new generations and its failure to raise new generations as perpetuators of the system.

The mentality that motivates the AKP rulers’ changes to the education system:

- If only Greece had won the War of Salvation! (Kadir Mısıroğlu, the historian known as fez-wearing Kadir)

- We must raise “pious and vindictive generations” for the construction of a conservative society. (Erdoğan)

- What good will come of teaching mathematics to those who don’t know jihad? (An AKP parliamentarian very close to Erdoğan)

- The vote you cast for the AKP will be your entry certificate to heaven on judgement day! (Election campaign speeches by AKP spokespersons)

- We have fed them but this is the result. You feed them and meet their every need but they still don’t give their votes. We will henceforth look here (pointing to his head), not to the stomach.” (Erdoğan)

- A mosque-centred social life must be established. We must also draw children and women into this mosque-centred life! Greece won Istanbul (the election)! (The AKP’s Istanbul-Esenler Mayor)

The aim of the dozens of initiatives the AKP has sought to bring about in education is to instil youth with a mentality of which the above pronouncements are a reflection, amounting to a confession of the AKP mentality that I have discussed from many aspects in the recent past!

The rest is talk for its own sake.

THE STRUGGLE FOR SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC, SCIENTIFIC AND FREE EDUCATION IN THE NATIVE LANGUAGE WILL STRENGTHEN

The “system” that Minster Selçuk proclaimed the day before yesterday is the “Ziya Selçuk version” of the educational counterpart of the proposition touted in recent years of raising pious, jihadist generations consistent with the goal of constructing a conservative society.

Taken in conjunction with developments in politics, I can say right now that our youth and people will reject this “new education system” not just of Ziya Selçuk but of the “single-party, single-man rule” and will oppose the mentality behind this system with increasing resistance.

The first signs that “social resistance” to this system will continue come in the form of:

- Erdoğan speaking at every opportunity of failure in the area of education and culture,

- The acceptance by now even by circles close to the rulers that the endeavour to manipulate secondary education through religious vocational high schools has “backfired,”

- The rejection of the current education system by all circles of society, and

- The existence of serious criticism using such terms as “reactionary, ideological and privatization-oriented” that started even on the first day of the “Ziya Selçuk system.”

It is also beyond dispute that this resistance will engender an advancement in the struggle for secular, democratic, scientific and free education in the native language that has been going on for a period in excess of a half century, and thus broaden and sharpen the basis of the struggle taking place in the educational field.

(Translated by Tim Drayton)


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