ABTTF President: “The closure of our schools, one by one each year, is the result of a systematic policy designed to gradually erode our educational autonomy. To deprive a community of its schools is to target not only its educational institutions, but also its memory, its language and its future. This is nothing less than the systematic dismantling of our educational autonomy”.
Under a decision published in the Official Gazette of Greece on 13 July 2026, eight Turkish primary schools in Western Thrace are to be closed during the 2026–2027 school year. Under the same decision, the Kehros (Mehrikoz) Turkish Primary School in the prefecture of Rodopi, which had been closed on grounds of low number of pupils, is to be re-opened.
According to the decision, education will cease in the 2026–2027 school at the Turkish primary schools in Didymoteicho in the prefecture of Evros; Avato (Beyköy) and Vafeyka (Boyacılar) in the prefecture of Xanthi; and Ano Drosini (Üntren), Dilina (Delinasköy), Omirikon (Omurluköy), Mischos (Çepelli), and Hloi (Hebilköy) in the prefecture of Rodopi.
The number of Turkish primary schools operating under the educational autonomy guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne has continued to decline at an unprecedented rate in recent years. The number of Turkish primary schools, which stood at 305 in 1930, fell to 194 in 2008, 103 in 2021, to 90 in the 2023–2024 school year, to 86 in the 2024–2025 school year, and to 83 in the 2025–2026 school year. Under the latest decision, the number of Turkish primary schools operating in Western Thrace will fall to 76 in the 2026–2027 school year.
“In Western Thrace, where hundreds of Turkish primary schools once existed, the future of our schools is now determined by new closure decisions issued every summer. Although our educational autonomy—guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne—appears to exist on paper, in practice, it is being progressively hollowed out year by year. The closure of our schools, one by one each year, is the result of a systematic policy designed to gradually erode our educational autonomy. To deprive a community of its schools is to target not only its educational institutions, but also its memory, its language and its future. This is nothing less than the systematic dismantling of our educational autonomy’’, said Halit Habip Oğlu, President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF).
* Image: www.anadoluimages.com
