Turkey's high school students organization Leftist High School Students (Solcu Liseliler) issued a statement on the university entrance exam, claiming that this system is rotten for a long time but the pandemic gave people a chance to see it more clearly. Leftist High School Students called their deskmates to look forward to the future with hope and keep on fighting against those who play with their lives.
The full statement is as follows:
Who will ensure justice when the youth is given no options?
Since the beginning of our education, we hear only one thing: Matriculation will determine your life!
This week, we will enter the exam which will “determine our lives” along with millions of friends and peers. This exam is supposed to evaluate our knowledge, our talents, our dreams and all the things we are capable of, in almost 3 hours. We have 3 hours, make it or break it!
This year, we see there is a new criterion added to the evaluation: our immunities will compete!
There is no reasonable answer to what happened in the last 3 months of Turkey. No decision has been made considering our benefit on a matter that concerns us directly. Workers are stuck into the busses in weekdays and their homes in weekends; while it is forbidden for us to take a step out, our deskmates are “allowed” to work despite all risks.
We all know that this system is rotten and have been for a long time but the pandemic gave us a chance to see it more clearly. The mental or physical health of the students is not a matter of concern for those who brought the exam forward by an entire month when the outbreak had not yet eased. The pictures were taken after the high school entrance exam, last Saturday is obvious proof of that. Those who made these decisions are the bannermen of this system.
Were the conditions going to be any fair if there was no outbreak? Is the same education provided in every public school, can we all go to the private tutoring institutions, is it possible to evaluate everyone with the same exam, which one of us can choose our dream jobs despite the fear of unemployment?
We can increase the number of our questions forever but there is only one question need to be answered:
Who will ensure justice in these conditions?
If the education is unfair, if decisions are made by ignoring 3 million students, if we are starting defeated to this race from the beginning it is impossible to leave this question unanswered.
We will change the system that tries to determine our future with exams and ruin the future dreams of millions of young people with stress and anxiety of the future. We will change it.
We know that there is one more choice other than what has been put in front of us:
Looking forward to the future with hope and keep on fighting against those who play with our lives and our futures, no matter what happens after those 3 hours!
We are calling all of our deskmates to solve the question that we can not leave unanswered!
