Eğitim-Sen ,Education union ,Van Branch President Murat Atabay, regarding the proposal to “open girls’ schools”, stated that the aim of the current government is; He said that his aim is to detach women from social life and to imprison them in the private sphere, and that he sees educational institutions as the best place to implement this.
In a television program, Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin suggested that some families do not send their girls to school due to co-education, and suggested “opening schools for girls”. There was a reaction from many quarters to this proposal of Minister Tekin. Voicing his views on the subject, Van Education-Union President Murat Atabay stated that the intention is not only to bring the girls who do not attend school to school upon the demands of their families.
Atabay stated that the government has been trying to build the infrastructure of something for years and said that a process started with the opening of Imam Hatips with the 4+4+4 system introduced in 2010-11 and continued with the introduction of compulsory religion courses.
‘A malicious approach’
Regarding the co-education discussions, Atabay said, “Today, we know very clearly the main intention of the co-educational debates and its infrastructure. The purpose of political power; separating women from social life, confining them to the private sphere. Educational institutions are the best place for them to implement this,” he said. Stating that the state should protect the rights of children, Atabay said, “The intention is not only to bring the girls who do not attend school to schools upon the demands of their families. Normally, the person whose benefit should be taken into account is not the family, but the child.”
‘If the family demand was taken into account, the demand for education in the mother tongue would have been received’
He said that if the parents’ request were not taken into consideration, most of the families in Van wanted their children to receive education in Kurdish, and their demands for education in their mother tongue would be met. Atabay said, “To say that if we open girls’ schools separately and boys’ schools separately, they will come to schools, it is both malicious and a very dangerous approach that will open the way for future applications that will reveal their malicious intentions.”
‘This discourse is the accumulation of years’
Stating that children should get to know each other psychologically and pedagogically, Atabay said, “Children need to grow up together. Schools are not the only areas where girls and boys are together. After school life, they will spend time together in business life and marriage. It is a very serious approach that has been put forward to cut off women from business life starting from schools, to make women completely obedient in marriage, to put them under the hegemony of the masculine mentality, and to reveal a social structure that does not give women any rights as in the Sharia, but only fulfills the demands of the husband. .
PHOTO: BBC
Atabay said that this rhetoric was not just something the Minister of National Education had said at that moment, but that it was years of experience. We can see it very clearly.”
There are many reasons why children do not attend school
Emphasizing that it is the economic and social infrastructure of children not attending school, Atabay said, “The feudal structure has an effect. The rhetoric that ‘girls do not go to school so as not to be with boys’ is very hollow. If we want to increase the rate of schooling, we must first improve the quality of education,” he said.
Stating that the expectations of the families from education should be met, Atabay said, “When children receive education, will they be able to have a job after this education, or will they face the exams, interviews determined by the AKP-MHP government? When you place the phrase, “Your child can read, but will not get anywhere unless he or she somehow relates to us” in the social structure, the society inevitably acts according to the lines you have determined. Just as they are applying positive discrimination to Imam Hatip and Theology Faculties today, they will fill many fields with them in the future,” he said.
“As a union, we will fulfill all our responsibilities”
Atabay said, “This is a step to change society. It is an expression of a practice that will abolish secular, democratic, scientific education and turn Turkey into the Taliban mentality, Afghanistan. We think that we will see the work of this infrastructure in the future,” he said.
Atabay said that as a union, they would meet with families and democratic mass organizations and express the drawbacks that this would pose in the future. Atabay finally said, “As the union, we have to fulfill all our responsibilities and fight. But at the same time, forming a public opinion, creating a line of struggle for this, and executing the legal processes will definitely be in the struggle program that we will put before us,” he said.
Serhat News
Translator :Akif Coşkun
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