The unique way to dialog crosses through education

In some selected districts where the population concentration rate of Turkish minority in Western Thrace is high, government of Greece announced that Turkish language would be elective course in some Greek public schools and Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) announced a press release and said "The unique way to dialog crosses through education"

In some selected districts where the population concentration rate of Turkish minority in Western Thrace is high, government of Greece announced that Turkish language would be elective course in some Greek public schools. Until now there has been no further press announcement neither about this new initiative nor its details although it is going to be implemented in the coming winter semester of 2006 – 2007.

Lausanne Treaty gives the minority members living in Greece the right to establish and administer their own minority schools. Until the end of1950’s there was not so many problems concerning education. With Cyprus problem, educational problems began to gain serious weight in the political relations bet-ween Turkey and Greece.

As time passed, Turkish minority lost their control over the Turkish minority schools and Greek’s pres-sure is worth mentioning here. The schools that did not have the ability neither to select their staff nor curriculum lost their education quality gradually.

On the one hand gradually decreasing education quality of Turkish Minority Schools and on the other hand elective Turkish language Courses

The above mentioned leading educational problems of Turkish minority forced Turkish minority children to go to Greek public schools as emphasized by Halit Habipoğlu and he continued „Turkish Minority families preferred to send their children to Greek public schools due to low level education quality of Turkish minority members. In Turkish minority schools, teachers are able to speak neither Turkish nor Greek and as a result students have low level of Turkish and Greek languages.“ Habipoğlu analysed that recent decision of government of Greece as „ Government of Greece wants to deliver the finishing blow to Turkish Minority schools by putting Turkish elective course at Greek public schools and like this there will be no demand for Turkish Minority schools anymore.

„Government of Greece plans to prevent the new Turkish Minority school openings with this new initi-ative“ said Habipoğlu and continued „Government of Greece claimed that this new initiative is panned to help students to improve their language skills when communicating with Turkey and neighbour countries but this is not so logical for our Turkish Minority children living in European Union while their mother language is already Turkish and foreign languages for them are English, German, French but not Turkish. Greek Ministry of Education should improve education quality of Turkish Minority schools as well.“
Neither opinions nor comments of none of the Turkish Minority establishments were asked about the mentioned initiative and this is one of the main critiques of Habipoğlu and he said“ The way to good education crosses through dialog. In Germany, at some public schools Turkish language courses are e-lective in addition to other foreign languages and although they are state schools there is always healthy dialog between the administration and families.“