Comprehensive education reform agenda in Greece released

ABTTF President Halit Habip Oğlu: “We urge the Greek government to respect the right to education in mother tongue of the children belonging to our minority and fulfil immediately our minority’s demand for opening bilingual minority nursery schools in Western Thrace”

The Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs has launched a new reform providing radical changes in the education system in Greece, which also includes raising the compulsory education period from ten to fourteen years. According to the daily Gündem, the Minister of Education Nikos Filis stated through the new regulation, the compulsory education in Greece will be fourteen years by incorporating the three-year high school into it and raising the compulsory nursery school from one to two years. Filis also said during a dialogue process on the concerning education reform, which will be coordinated by the National Dialogue Committee and open to natural persons and establishments, the planned changes in the education system will be proposed and discussed, adding the concerning education reform will not be completed in one or two years and extended to years.

Another important development in education, which directly concerns the Turkish minority of Western Thrace, was the distribution of lacking Turkish textbooks in minority primary schools after one and a half years. According to dailies Trakya’nın Sesi ve Millet, the children, who had been having Turkish lesson only with copying papers at the Turkish minority primary schools in Western Thrace, eventually received on 8 January 2016 their Turkish textbooks. Since the Greek authorities had not assigned the necessary permission, the minority children had had to complete the Turkish lesson during the 2014-2015 school year without textbooks. The lack of teachers and Turkish textbooks had been protested by the Turkish minority of Western Thrace, in particular in Xanthi at the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year.

“Beginning with the school year of 2007-2008, the compulsory education period in our country Greece had been raised from nine to ten years and the children belonging to our Turkish minority of Western Thrace had had to attend for a year Greek-language public nursery schools. And now, through the planned education reform, the compulsory nursery school will be two years. Referring to the statement by the Education Minister Nikos Filis, the institutions and organizations of our minority should also be included in the dialogue process having been started by the Greek government and asked their views. Pursuant to the 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne and other bilingual treaties on education signed between Greece and Turkey, our minority has the right to establish bilingual nursery schools where the instruction both in Greek and Turkish languages is offered. We urge the Greek government to respect the right to education in mother tongue of the children belonging to our minority and fulfil immediately our minority’s demand for opening bilingual minority nursery schools in Western Thrace” stated Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).