Turkey’s Education Ministry has begun inspecting Armenian minority schools over their admission of students from Armenia, according to a report by Agos.
Ministry inspectors reportedly told school administrators that Armenian citizens could no longer be admitted as guest students and should instead continue their education at state schools. The inspectors also reportedly arrived with lists of Armenian students, asked about those who had attended the schools in previous years and sought information about whether their registrations had been transferred to state schools. The inspections are also expected to include Greek and Jewish minority schools.
Armenian schools have admitted students who are citizens of Armenia as guest students for about 14 years under a provision in Turkey’s 2012 regulation on private educational institutions. The regulation allows schools to admit foreign citizens as guest students if they have available places but says the students cannot receive diplomas. Students who leave the school can instead receive a document showing the courses they took and their grades.
The schools have used the provision to educate Armenian citizens living in Turkey along with students from Turkey’s Armenian community. Because guest students cannot receive diplomas from the schools, the arrangement has been an incomplete solution to a longstanding education problem.
The latest inspections have raised concerns among Armenian school administrators that even this arrangement could now be ended. Community foundation officials and school administrators are expected to meet in the coming days to discuss the issue, while Turkish Armenian Patriarch Sahak Maşalyan has also been informed.
The inspections come less than a month after Education Minister Yusuf Tekin met with educators from Armenian schools in İstanbul. At a July meeting, representatives working on Armenian-language and Armenian religious education curricula told Tekin they were finalizing revisions to bring the programs in line with the ministry’s Turkish Century Education Model.
Tekin said during the meeting that the ministry did not discriminate among students and discussed a less grammar-focused approach to language education. The ministry has also said it is continuing dialogue with minority schools.
The Human Rights and Oppressed Peoples Solidarity Association (MAZLUMDER), which has been working on the education rights of Armenian students, said the reported move could remove an option that had allowed children from Armenia to attend Armenian schools for more than a decade.
The group said the 2012 guest student provision had been an interim solution to a longstanding problem and that ending it without another arrangement would leave students facing further difficulties. It called for legal changes that would protect the students’ access to education.
“Education is a universal and non-postponable right regardless of a child’s nationality, legal status or the immigration status of their family,” MAZLUMDER said. The group said any change to the existing system should be made without interrupting students’ education.
Journalist and writer Rober Koptaş also criticized the reported move, saying the government was preventing children of Armenian immigrant families from continuing at Armenian schools despite having introduced the guest student arrangement more than a decade ago.
Turkey’s Armenian school system is relatively small. Fourteen Armenian schools in İstanbul had a combined 177 students sit this year’s high school placement exam, with 154 of them continuing their secondary education at Armenian high schools.
Turkey’s Armenian, Greek and Jewish minority schools operate under a distinct legal framework for minority education and primarily serve the country’s non-Muslim communities. The 2012 regulation provided the legal basis cited by Armenian schools for admitting foreign citizens as guest students.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
