Why Turkey needs to chop a German-speaking faculty | EUROtoday

The Istanbul boys’ highschool is among the most revered coaching facilities in Türkiye. So far it has additionally been a German-Turkish showcase undertaking that has existed for nearly 70 years. But Education Minister Yusuf Tekin’s appreciation for the İstanbul Erkek Lisesi (İEL) seems to be restricted. The ministry has decreed that from the subsequent faculty 12 months onwards solely two preparatory lessons as an alternative of the present 5 must be taught in German. The resolution was apparently made with out session with the German facet, which sends and funds 34 lecturers to the college.

In the long run, the choice would imply that solely round 60 college students in every year group might take the Abitur as an alternative of the present 150. The remaining college students will then be assigned to an English-speaking stream the place they’ll solely full a Turkish diploma and can not be taught by German lecturers, who presently cowl six topics, together with physics, math, biology and chemistry.

The ministry is holding a low profile concerning the causes for the prescribed downsizing. A question from the FAZ went unanswered. But there are affordable suspicions shared by many concerned. It might be a thorn within the minister’s facet that lately greater than 90 % of İEL graduates went to Germany and Switzerland to check – and often by no means returned.

In 2024 there have been 146 of the 155 highschool graduates. This is especially painful as a result of it includes the brightest minds within the nation. Only those that obtain the utmost rating of 500 or 499 within the nationwide entrance examination for secondary faculties are allowed to enroll within the spectacular constructing from 1882 in Istanbul’s Fatih district – freed from cost. Despite the outdated title, this has lengthy been true for women too.

The record of alumni reads like a Who’s Who of Türkiye. These embody three former prime ministers: Mesut Yılmaz, Necmettin Erbakan and Ahmet Davutoğlu. The incumbent central financial institution chief and his predecessor are additionally included, as are quite a few CEOs of enormous firms, vital scientists and well-known artists. In many German firms in Turkey, İEL graduates make up a major a part of the administration.

The former German faculty principal Michael Schopp and former graduates with whom the FAZ spoke suspect that the ministry additionally doesn’t just like the important spirit at İEL. “The whole direction obviously no longer suits some officials in the Ministry of Education,” says Schopp. He headed the German division of İEL from 2003 to 2009 and based an İEL faculty affiliation in Germany with earlier graduates. In addition to the unbiased pondering that’s offered for within the German curriculum, Tekin may additionally dislike the Kemalist-secular custom that has at all times prevailed at the highschool.

The German division’s mission assertion states: “Our students are raised in the spirit of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to be self-confident and critical, free and scientifically minded, performance-oriented and team-oriented individuals who love their fatherland, are cosmopolitan and conscious of tradition, open and democratic, social and tolerant.” This isn’t the route that the Turkish schooling system has taken below President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Conservative Islamic and authoritarian values ​​are taught in faculties, and rector and professor positions at universities are stuffed based mostly on political loyalty.

The deliberate discount in dimension of the İEL, which Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt and Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker have already visited, matches with the present political route in Ankara. Since taking workplace three years in the past, Education Minister Yusuf Tekin has elevated the stress on international language faculties within the nation. The three German embassy faculties and the 2 French excessive faculties in Turkey have not been allowed to simply accept college students with Turkish or twin nationality for 2 years. Foreign faculties reminiscent of İEL should submit their textbooks to the ministry for examination.

By placing stress on foreign-language faculties, the Turkish authorities additionally needs to precise its demand for reciprocity. Ankara want to open its personal international faculties in Germany – in Frankfurt, Berlin and Cologne. The dialogue about this has been occurring for years. So far, the accountable federal states have resisted this, in all probability additionally out of concern about media stories about “Erdoğan’s long arm in Germany”.

Just this week, the German-Turkish professional fee is assembly in Ankara for the primary time in years, reportedly with the participation of the federal states. The discussions are additionally prone to be about Turkey’s demand for its personal faculties. The Foreign Office says there are presently “negotiations on a bilateral school agreement”. It is affordable to imagine that the Ministry of Education might use the way forward for the İstanbul Erkek Lisesi as further leverage within the talks.

Perhaps İEL would have remained below the radar if there had not been a violent combat within the boys’ dormitory of the college’s boarding faculty in November. A bunch of ninth graders had beforehand indulged in sexual fantasies on the expense of their classmates in a chat group. When this got here out, eleventh graders beat them up as punishment. Turkish media bought wind of it. The matter grew right into a scandal. The Ministry of Education intervened and despatched an inspector.

He left no stone unturned. The Turkish faculty principal and 4 of his Turkish deputies have been transferred and their salaries have been downgraded. Six different lecturers, additionally Turkish, have been banned from supervising boarding faculty college students. Two college students have been expelled from faculty, eleven college students have been transferred to different faculties, and 7 others have been briefly suspended from faculty. Two members of the İELDER alumni affiliation have been investigated for doable legal offenses. All older college students have been moved from the boarding faculty to different lodging.

This might additionally contribute to the truth that the “spirit” of the İEL will not be lived as fervently sooner or later. He has made gestures of protest prior to now, for instance in 2015 towards the dismissal of a historical past trainer on allegations of disrespect for Islam or in 2016 towards a faculty principal appointed by the ministry. The Turkish Ministry of Education additionally went towards the grain in coping with Christmas traditions in school.

The faculty traditions are additionally upheld within the alumni networks in Germany and Turkey. These embody a basis, two alumni associations and several other Whatsapp teams. They name it the “Camia” – the neighborhood. The alumni medical group alone has round 300 members in Turkey, 50 of whom are college professors. The alumni community in Germany consists of greater than 1,700 folks, primarily engineers and docs.

They all share a powerful identification with the college colours yellow and black, the college’s personal scout group honored by Atatürk and the story that a complete faculty 12 months volunteered for the Dardanelles marketing campaign in 1915 and didn’t return. Even again then, German lecturers have been instructing on the faculty.

The İEL is predicated on a posh authorized construction with grey areas that make it weak. It is on the similar time a state Turkish highschool and a German faculty overseas. The authorized foundation is a cultural settlement from 1957 and a funding settlement with the ZfA from 2012. At the college you possibly can purchase each a Turkish and a German faculty leaving certificates. Most college students do each.

The former German headmaster Schopp sees the deliberate discount within the variety of lessons as “an attack on the heart of the school”. His faculty affiliation has despatched a petition with greater than 1,000 signatures to the Foreign Office within the hope that the federal authorities will work to keep up the established order of “historically developed educational cooperation”. But the Foreign Office says that “so far they have not received any official communication from the Turkish side about a reduction in size”.