News, Etc.
An Armenian citizen of Turkey was bold enough to write to President Abdullah Gul asking for free textbooks in the Armenian language to be provided to some 3,000 students of 17 community schools in Istanbul, as their 15 million Turkish peers all over the country. President Gul passed on the request to the National Education Ministry which studied the reauest and announced last week that not only the students at the Armenian minority schools but Greek and Jewish community schools will also be provided with free textbooks if they submit digital CD’s in their languages to be printed.
In January this year, the ministry announced that free textbooks in Turkish would be distributed to all minority schools beginning of the next academic year for the first time, a practice that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government initiated at all the Turkish schools at primary and secondary educational levels after the 2002 elections that brought it to power.
“While our government is distributing free textbooks to 15 million students for years, our community is trying to educate our students in the Armenian language using photocopied texts because we do not have the means to print textbooks. If our state wishes it can remedy this disgraceful situation,” Varujan Turac wrote in his petition to President Gul.
According to the National Education Ministry the additional cost of distributing free textbooks in Turkish to minority schools is 58,000 Turkish Liras (apprx. 27,000 Euros). According to ministry official printing textbooks in the Armenian language will cost about 100,000 Turkish Liras (apprx. 46,000 Euros).
Compared to the Armenian community schools that have a student population of 3,000, the number of students attending the community schools of other minorities is quite low. For instance, the Greek (Rum) minority in Istanbul maintains about 10 schools, but the total number of students is only 240. The Jewish community has one school with a student body of 540 youths.
Free textbook scheme was criticized
Although it seems a very considerate idea to provide free textbooks to students, the scheme has been criticized mainly for the mismanagement of the plan. According to a report by Union of Chambers and Exchanges (TOBB) the government paid a total of 500 million Turkish Liras (232,650,000 Euros) since 2003 for printing the textbooks, 60 percent of which are processed at government-owned printing presses. The same report claims that this figure is 127,500,000 Turkish Liras (60 million Euros) more than the estimated cost.
Another point put forward by the critics of the free textbook scheme is that 25,000 bookshops in provincial towns had to close down because of this practice.
