ANKARA, 14 October 2003 — Turkey’s powerful military fired a warning shot yesterday at government plans to reform religious schools in a shake-up critics fear will boost the influence of Islam in higher education. The military views itself as the ultimate guarantor of Turkey’s secular political system and distrusts the intentions of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) because of its Islamist roots.
The government plans to ease restrictions on students entering university from the so-called “Imam Hatip” high schools - state-funded vocational schools for future Muslim clerics.
Critics from Turkey’s conservative secular establishment also suspect the AKP wants to increase the number of Imam Hatip schools - a claim the government rejects. “We have difficulty understanding why the number of graduates from the Imam Hatip schools should increase from the current 25,000,” said Lt. Gen. Ilker Basbug, second in command at the military General Staff.
“We expect common sense to prevail on this issue. There are basic problems in education,” said Basbug, speaking at a news conference devoted mainly to Turkey’s plans to send troops to neighboring Iraq. Under the government plans, Imam Hatip students, who come mostly from poorer families, would have wider access to university education and would be allowed to study subjects other than theology.
University rectors have also criticized the plans. Turkey’s most prominent business forum, TUSIAD, yesterday called for cuts in the number of Imam Hatip schools, saying the country did not need so many clerics.
Education Minister Huseyin Celik denied suggestions the government was trying to encourage the Imam Hatip schools for political aims. “Nobody has the right to question our intentions,” he told the Hurriyet daily in an interview published yesterday. “Our party gained millions, tens of millions of votes (in the last election). Why would we need to do this?”
In televised remarks, Erdogan said the government’s plans were aimed at boosting the number of educated people in Turkey. The AKP, which has a big enough parliamentary majority to amend the constitution if it wishes, eschews the Islamist label and says it is a moderate, conservative, pro-Western party. The party traces its roots to two Islamist parties banned in the late 1990s.
Religious schools in Turkey, which by law are tasked with raising preachers and other Muslim clergy, are regarded by many as hothouses for Islamist political movements. Under the existing university entrance system, it is almost impossible for graduates of such schools to win a place at institutions of higher education other than divinity faculties.
