Ruling party firm on education bill

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Parliament’s Education Commission chair Nabi Avcı (C) speaks to reporters. AA photo

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has urged his party’s lawmakers to stand firm on a much-criticized education reform plan and have it approved in Parliament while he is away on his upcoming foreign trip.

“We will speak the language they [the opposition] speak and have the bill passed in Parliament. This nation has given us 326 Parliamentary members to protect its rights, while the total of the other parties is about half this figure,” Erdoğan said at the parliamentary group meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) yesterday.

Waiting for good news

“I hope you will send me good news from the General Assembly while I am in South Korea and Iran,” he said, referring to the visits to the two countries planned for next week.

The AKP has said it will put the bill to debate in the General Assembly on March 27, overriding severe opposition objections that the draft’s approval at Parliament’s Education Commission was unlawful.
Commission chair Nabi Avcı of the AKP yesterday sent the Commission report of the session to Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek, completing another procedure before the bill goes to the General Assembly. He said it was not yet clear when he would respond to a letter by Çiçek, in which the Speaker urged him to consider the opposition’s objections.

The AKP rushed the bill through the Commission March 11 in a session marred by unprecedented brawls, which erupted after AKP deputies packed the tiny hall in advance, leaving no room for Republican People’s Party (CHP) members. Commission chair Nabi Avcı took advantage of the chaos and hurriedly read out the draft, which was approved by AKP votes in half an hour without debate.