Turkish National Education Ministry has introduced the final version of the national school curriculum. As the details of the curriculum are being published, it gets obvious that scientific education is being pushed aside in Turkey.
In the social sciences curriculum for the 7th grade, the historical chronology of Turkey is distorted.
The curriculum on the history of the Ottoman period includes the establishment and the rise of the Ottoman Empire and jumps into the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. In other words, the curriculum leaves out the decline and the fall of the Ottoman empire. The neo-Ottoman dream of the AKP government, proposing the Islamization of Turkey with references to the Ottoman empire, has a direct influence in this curricular decision.
The union of the labourers of education and science (Eğitim-İş) objected to this historical distortion. The union said that the exclusion of the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire in the 7th grade causes chronological problems with the 8th-grade courses on the history of modern Turkey.
The union also noted that the curricula on the Republic of Turkey and Turkish literature include chapters on the July 15 coup attempt and that the theory of evolution is excluded from the curriculum.
"NO USE TEACHING MATHEMATICS"
After the much debated content on 'jihadism' in the new curriculum, AKP MP and national education parliamentary commission member Ahmet Hamdi Çamlı commented on the content 'jihadism' to be taught in compulsory religion classes. Çamlı argued "there is no use teaching mathematics if the child does not know about jihadism".
The content on 'jihadism' has been criticised by other education commission members from the opposition party CHP. Metin Lütfi Baydar, an MP of CHP, commented that the AKP government wishes to create an Islamic militia from the children raised with such curriculum.
