By Burak Bekdil
One way the rise of Islamist authoritarianism in a
country can be seen is by the rise in the number of mosques, religious schools
and prisons -- coupled with a sharp decline in the quality of education. Turkey
is no exception.Most recently, the Turkish government said that it would build
174 new prisons, increasing capacity by 100,000 convicts...Before that,
Turkey's government released nearly 40,000 convicted criminals, in order to
make space for tens of thousands of suspects, including journalists,
businessmen and academics, detained after the failed coup of July 15… The other type of trendy building in Turkey is the
mosque. Turkey's state-funded Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has
proudly announced that nearly 9,000 new mosques were built across the country
between 2005 and 2015. The number of mosques in Turkey is estimated at around
90,000, or one mosque per 866 people... Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, has not only been building mosques and prisons to further Islamize the
country. He has also passionately been building religious schools [from which
he once graduated]. He boasts that during his term as prime minister and
president (since November 2002), the number of students enrolled at religious
schools, officially called "imam schools," has risen from 60,000 to
more than 1.2 million -- a 20-fold increase.
***
Comment
"[I]n spite of dire predictions by secularists, the
[ruling] AKP did not introduce conspicuous efforts to Islamize Turkey. But
since 2011, this has changed." — Svante E. Cornell, in "The
Islamization of Turkey: Erdogan's Education Reforms."
In 2014, Turkey's government introduced a scheme which
forcibly enrolled about 40,000 students at Islamic "imam schools,"
and granted permission for girls as young as 10 to wear Islamic headscarves in
class.
A new study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development found that 43% of Turkish women aged between 15 and 29 were
neither working nor receiving education.
One way the rise of Islamist authoritarianism in a
country can be seen is by the rise in the number of mosques, religious schools
and prisons -- coupled with a sharp decline in the quality of education. Turkey
is no exception.
Most recently, the Turkish government said that it would
build 174 new prisons, increasing capacity by 100,000 convicts. This is
Turkey's reply to complaints that six convicts must share a cell built for
three. Convicts say they must sleep in turns in their bunk beds.
Before that, Turkey's government released nearly 40,000
convicted criminals, in order to make space for tens of thousands of suspects,
including journalists, businessmen and academics, detained after the failed
coup of July 15.
Turkish police and soldiers transport handcuffed military
officers, who are accused of participating in the failed July 15 coup d'état.
(Image source: Haber Turk video screenshot)
The other type of trendy building in Turkey is the
mosque. Turkey's state-funded Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has
proudly announced that nearly 9,000 new mosques were built across the country
between 2005 and 2015. The number of mosques in Turkey is estimated at around
90,000, or one mosque per 866 people. Iran, with a similar population to
Turkey's [nearly 78 million] boasts just 48,000 mosques. In other words, Turkey
has twice as many mosques as the Islamic Republic of Iran, for roughly the same
population. Egypt, which has a population -- nearly 90 million -- bigger than
Turkey's, has 67,000 mosques.
Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has not only
been building mosques and prisons to further Islamize the country. He has also
passionately been building religious schools [from which he once graduated]. He
boasts that during his term as prime minister and president (since November
2002), the number of students enrolled at religious schools, officially called
"imam schools," has risen from 60,000 to more than 1.2 million -- a
20-fold increase. In his study, "The Islamization of Turkey: Erdogan's
Education Reforms," Svante E. Cornell wrote that:
"The growing efforts at Islamization of Turkish
society have largely gone unnoticed. For many years, Islamization was the dog
that did not bark: in spite of dire predictions by secularists, the [ruling]
AKP did not introduce conspicuous efforts to Islamize Turkey. But since 2011,
this has changed. The main exhibit is the education sector, which President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has remodeled to instill considerably more Islamic
content, in line with his stated purpose to raise "pious
generations". Ultimately, the Islamic overhaul of the education system is
bound to have implications for Turkey's civilizational identity, and on the
choices it will make on where it belongs politically."
In 2012, Erdogan's government introduced a contentious
12-year compulsory education system, paving the way for religious middle
schools. In 2014, it introduced a scheme which forcibly enrolled about 40,000
students at imam schools. In some districts, imam schools were suddenly the
only option for parents who could not afford private schooling. Also in 2014,
the government granted permission for girls as young as 10 to wear Islamic
headscarves in class.
So, where does Turkey's increasingly Islamist education
stand after all those efforts? According to a report released this month by the
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Turkey is one of
the countries with the lowest spending per student. Turkey's public spending
for primary and secondary school education, and its spending per university
student, were all below the OECD average. The OECD study also found that 43% of
Turkish women aged between 15 and 29 were neither working nor receiving
education. The OECD average for that group is 17%.
But it is not just about the quantitative findings;
qualitative findings also point to an alarming education deficit in Turkey. In
2016, more than two million Turkish high school graduates took the annual
national test to enroll at a post-secondary institution. According to the
nationwide test results, the students scored an average 4.6 out of 40 questions
in mathematics; 7.8 in science and 10.7 in humanities. Ironically, the test
results show that the Turkish students do not even have adequate skills in
their own language. The average score in Turkish was 19.1 out of 40.
This is the inevitable outcome of systematic Islamization
of society in general, and of education in particular, over the past 14 years.
The next 14 years will doubtless be far bleaker.
Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for
the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents
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Gatestone Institute.
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