CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu slams proposed education system in outdoor group meeting

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Tuesday lashed out at the government over proposed changes to Turkey’s education system during a parliamentary group meeting his party in a crowded Ankara square in protest of the proposal.

“Today is Tuesday. Not weekend. This is a work day, but tens of thousands are here. If we are holding our  group meeting here, we are doing this against a backward understanding,”  Kılıçdaroğlu said while addressing supporters in Ankara’s Tandoğan Square.

Turkish political parties who are represented in Parliament usually hold their weekly group meetings in Parliament every Tuesday. However, in a first in the history of Turkish Parliament, the CHP decided last week to hold its meeting in Tandoğan Square “to explain to people how Turkey is going backwards” with the proposed education reforms.

“You are determining the upcoming 50-years of a country. The [proposed] education law is in this regard more important than the Constitution. … Basic education should be implemented equally in all corners of Turkey. This is our target and what we are fighting for,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on Tuesday.

The government is seeking to change the duration of compulsory education from a consecutive and uninterrupted eight years to a version formulized as the “4+4+4 system,” where children will be able to enroll in other types of educational institutions — namely vocational high schools — after the first four years.

Parliament’s National Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Commission has already passed the bill through what the opposition says was “brute force” after deputies from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) occupied all the seats in the meeting room during voting. The bill was submitted to Parliament on Wednesday and, if adopted, will divide 12 years of compulsory education into three levels.

Currently, primary school is an eight-year, uninterrupted basic education that includes middle school, and therefore middle school is eliminated. If the bill becomes law, middle schools will be re-established, with basic primary school education separated into two levels.