Main opposition CHP leader criticizes changed curriculum, urges more Atatürk values

Rifat Başaran - ANKARA

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Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has criticized the country’s new education curriculum, saying that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, was being left out of it.

“Values and education is the root of a political party. We must narrate the real Atatürkism against this,” Kılıçdaroğlu said at a Central Executive Committee (MYK) meeting on July 19.

The final version of Turkey’s national school curriculum has left evolution out and added the concept of “jihad” as part of Islamic law in books, Education Minister İsmet Yılmaz said on July 18.

Kılıçdaroğlu stressed the country’s education had lost its national identity.  

“We must first describe freedom and independence on the basis of Atatürkism, and second, on knowledge-based production,” he added.   

The new curriculum will be executed for first, fifth and ninth graders starting this year and it will extend to other classes in the 2018-2019 academic year. Accordingly, a total of 176 class curricula have been renewed.

Yılmaz said evolution was not included in the national curriculum “because it is above the students’ level and not directly relevant,” leaving the topic to university education.

Associations have slammed the move, saying that Saudi Arabia was the only country that excluded evolution in its national curriculum.