President Erdoğan proposes ‘substantial’ education reform

ISTANBUL

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has proposed an education reform for what he said was to produce confident generations that will help the Turkish civilization to keep thriving, while admitting that the 18-year rule of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) has failed in the fields of education and culture.

“In the coming period, it’s imperative for us to educate our children properly starting from the family and throughout their education life. This requires a comprehensive education reform and not a routine curriculum change,” Erdoğan said at the opening of the Ibn Haldun University Complex on Oct. 19 in Istanbul.

This should constitute the main theme of the 2053 vision of Turkey, Erdoğan said, stressing that the education system of Turkey was based on teaching only facile material without the necessary moral education.

“Particularly because of the media, the influence of the traditional teaching and education, including the family, has weakened. The gap created in the minds and hearts of our children has been filled with Western-rooted popular culture items or with the delirium of deviant waves,” he stated.

Turkey has to reform its education starting from pre-school to higher education in a bid to overcome the problems stemming from a decades-old understanding of importing the Western system and its culture, Erdoğan said, describing it as a “blind imitation of the West.”

Erdoğan underlined the need to achieve an “intellectual hegemony” but his 18-year failed to make expected progress in the field of education and culture.

“Our children are receiving education, but we don’t have enough educated human power to make all of us confident. We’re raising a young population but we cannot properly realize our civilization vision. Our media has the modern infrastructure but does not reflect our voice and minds,” Erdoğan suggested.

“We are facing similar difficulties in the fields of science, arts and culture. We fail to explain ourselves to the world on even the issues we are most rightful about. That’s why I am of the opinion that we could not establish our intellectual rule,” he added.

Imitating others will not help any nation to surpass the actual level of civilization in the world, what Turkey needs to adopt is a progressive mindset taking cues from traditions, Erdoğan stressed.