The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) presented a written statement titled ‘‘Access to pre-school education in mother tongue and the rapid decrease in primary schools for children belonging to Turkish community in Western Thrace, Greece’’ to the 54th regular session of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council held in Geneva, Switzerland.
In its written statement, ABTTF underlined that the Turkish community in Western Thrace in Greece has been granted educational autonomy according to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and indicated that the autonomous structure in education has been greatly damaged by various laws, regulations and practices over the years, and noted it has been fully under the control of the state through fait accompli legal practices.
Noting that the number of primary schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace has decreased rapidly, ABTTF further added that within the framework of the ministerial decision issued in 2010, schools with fewer than nine students began to be closed, and Turkish primary schools were also subject to the same practice, despite having autonomous status in accordance with the Treaty of Lausanne.
Pointing out that this practice has become a systematic means of discrimination against the Turkish community in Western Thrace, ABTTF explained that there were 194 Turkish minority primary schools in Western Thrace in 2008, and this number increased to 188 in 2011, 170 in 2014, and 170 in 2015 due to closures. to 164, to 133 in 2016, to 130 in 2017, to 128 in 2018, to 123 in 2019, to 115 in 2020, to 103 in 2021, to 99 in 2022 It further noted that it dropped to 90 in the 2023-2024 school year.
Explaining that the government rejected the applications for the establishment of bilingual minority kindergartens in Western Thrace, where Turkish children can also receive education in their native language Turkish, ABTTF indicated that it is problematic for children whose native language is Turkish to be taught only in Greek as the language of instruction in kindergarten and that it negatively affects their start to education.
ABTTF further indicated that Greece insists on ignoring the need to establish bilingual minority kindergartens and continues to close Turkish primary schools, on grounds of the lack of sufficient students. On the other hand, it is noted that for the Greek community in Türkiye, whose status and rights were also defined by the Treaty of Lausanne, 21 children are currently studying in the primary school, which was opened in Gökçeada in 2013 with only 4 children and which also includes a kindergarten, and 35 students are studying in the secondary and high school opened in 2015.
Recalling the UN treaties to which Greece is a party, ABTTF further called on Greece to restore the educational autonomy of the Turkish community in Western Thrace guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne, to allow the establishment of Turkish kindergartens, including fully private ones, within the Turkish minority school system, and to stop closing Turkish primary schools with autonomous status by unilateral decisions on grounds of the lack of sufficient number of students.
