Demand of the Western Thrace Turkish community for having bilingual minority kindergartens persists

Halit Habip Oğlu: “With the demand of granting the right to education in mother tongue in preschool education we want bilingual minority kindergartens teaching in Turkish and Greek”

The Consultative Committee of the Turkish Minority of Western Thrace(BTTADK) repeated its demand for opening minority kindergartens teaching in Turkish and Greek in Western Thrace within the scope of educational autonomy of the Turkish Minority in Western Thrace guaranteed with the Lausanne Treaty. As a result of the meeting it had on 7 August 2017, BTTADK asked for opening of bilingual kindergartens having the same status with the minority schools in the Western Thrace.

The Committee assessed the pilot implementation declared in March 2017 by the Institute of Educational Policies which foresees member of the minority graduated from higher education institutions in Greece with command of both of the languages to work with an assigned teacher in kindergarten classroom in six public kindergartens where children of the Western Thrace Turkish Minority live. BTTADK stated that the system presented to the Western Thrace Turkish community is undesirable and reminded of sending 211 signed petitions for opening bilingual minority kindergartens teaching in Turkish and Greek to the Minister of Education in the past and underscored that demand of the Western Turkish community is again the same today.

Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) stated “As ABTTF we would give support to the demand of the Consultative Committee for opening bilingual minority kindergartens. The system tried to be created within the public school system for our children left without any option other than going to public kindergartens do not meet our real demand. Each implementation to be enacted ignoring the demand for opening bilingual minority kindergartens shall be deficient and insufficient in this regard. Our demand is clear with the demand of granting the right to education in mother tongue in preschool education we want bilingual minority kindergartens teaching in Turkish and Greek.”