Turkey opens vocational high school in northern Syria

Vocational high schools have become of key importance during under the rule of AKP government to institutionalize precarious work
Wednesday, 06 June 2018 23:29

Turkish AKP government opens a vocational high school in the northern Syrian town of Jarabulus where Turkish army had carried out a military operation in 2016 by violating the sovereignty rights of Syria.

The decision was taken by the Council of Ministers on April 30, 2018 upon the request of the Ministry of National Education. The school will be established in northern Syrian town under the Rectorate of Gaziantep University in Turkey’s southeastern province of Gaziantep.

Vocational high schools have become of key importance during under the rule of AKP government to institutionalize precarious work. The educational program in these schools in Turkey is based on the needs of the labour market: training of cheap labour force.

Turkish AKP government controls Jarabulus as a result of Operation Euphrates Shield. In late March 2017, the Turkish National Security Council announced that Ankara had successfully completed Operation Euphrates Shield in cooperation with the Free Syrian Army terrorist group in northern Syria, during which the cities of Jarabulus and Al-Bab handed over by Islamic State (IS) under a secret deal. 

The operation has been widely criticized by the Syrian government, who has accused Ankara of violating Syria's territorial integrity.

TURKEY TO ESTABLISH A FACULTY IN AL-BAB AFTER AN INDUSTRIAL ZONE

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Harran University in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa announced that the government would establish a faculty in Syria’s Al-Bab affiliated to Harran University on June 6. The chancellor of the university said, "We wanted to be a touch of hope for the youth in Al-Bab in order to support our country’s humanitarian initiatives."

In March 2018, a construction had also begun under the Turkish government's auspices in northern Syria of First Industrial City, in Al-Bab, an area swept by the Turkish-led Operation Euphrates Shield. Al-Bab had been captured by jihadist Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its ally Turkish forces in 2017.

As Turkish government’s education policy caused children to be forced to work in many different fields particularly in industrial estates, 700,000-800,000 of a total 1,6 million Syrian refugee children under 18 years old living in Turkey are in child labour as cheap labour, according to surveys.