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Education Erdogans conservative AKP has doubled religion class hours, removed evolutionary theory from classrooms and shut down universities in his bid to raise a pious generation.

Turkeys Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party during a meeting at the Turkish parliament. Credit: Reuters/Umit Bektas

While the earliereducation reforms of Turkeys socially conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) pointed towards inclusiveness, the current ones have a far more troubling direction.

Not content with removing around 45,000 education ministry staff from the government payroll following an abortive coup in July last year, Turkeys ruling party is now looking to take down Darwin.

Last month the government announced thatthe theory of evolutionwouldbe removed from the teaching curriculum at Turkish schools until students reach university.

The announcement adds to evidence cited by concerned secularists who suggestTurkeys education system is being remodelled in line with President Erdogans bid to raise pious generations and forge a New Turkey.

Efforts to rejigthe countrys teaching curriculum along more religious lines are not new, dating back at least asFebruary 2012.

What has changed since is President Erdogans seemingly unassailable position in post-coup attempt and post-referendum Turkey.

New Turkey

Despite its shrunken majority and the ever-increasing polarization of the Turkish electorate or perhaps because of these things AKP is pushing its policy agenda more aggressively than ever before.

Along with the ban on evolution in the classroom, the AKP educational reforms will seethe governments narrative on the 2016coup attemptembedded in school syllabi, while class time dedicated to modern Turkeys secular founder Kemal Attaturk will be reduced.

Forced enrolment of some school-age students intocontroversial religious imam-hatip stateschoolsis another feature of the new education agenda.

The AKP government won praise from both liberals and conservatives for managingtoreverse the countrysrepressive ban on headscarfs in universities back in 2010.The moveallowed womenfrom observant Muslim families to receive furthereducation.

But the imam-hatip schools have faced criticism for discouraging girls from doing that very thing.Secularists seetheschools growing rolein Turkeys education system as yet another sign thatAKP is trying to recast the country in its own traditionalist image.

An evolving threat

Accordingto the head of curriculum for the Turkish education ministry, teaching evolution in schoolsis controversial, but opponents of the ban were quick to side with science.

(They have removed evolution from the curriculum, biology class hours have been reduced by 33%, while religion class hours have been increased by 100%. God willing, we are going to get ahead of Iran soon.)

(They are removing evolution theory class. I am not wondering what they are going to teach our children.)

(There wont be any classes on evolution. But there are classes on Sharia criminal law and religion. This is the meaning of New Turkey.)

(Biology class, first class, first slide: evolution is real, and cannot be argued against. I have remembered this for 29 years. The teacher was right.)

The international response has also beencritical:

Currently the evolution ban only applies to schools, but many fear that universities are being targetedfor a serious government-led overhaul, too. Thousands of academics weredismissedfrom their jobs following the military coup, whileout of 180 universities currently operating in Turkey, 15 wereshut down.

This article originally appeared in Global Voices.

Categories: Education, External Affairs, Religion, Science, Society, World

Tagged as: AKP, Erdogan, evolutionary theory, new turkey, no-donate-link, pious generation, Sharia, Turkey coup

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In Turkey, Erdogan's Post-Revolutionary Agenda Invades Classrooms and Threatens Universities - The Wire