ABTTF President: “It is our country that does not comply with the treaties by violating our educational autonomy, which was guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne and functioned well from 1923 to 1977, with unilateral laws and practices! If our country restores our educational autonomy, all existing issues will be solved by themselves.’’
Deputy Director of Education of the Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Meri Kosmidou wrote an article in Turkish and Greek about the education of the Turkish community in Western Thrace.
According to Gündem newspaper, in the article titled ‘‘Five facts about minority education’’, Kosmidou touched upon the public and minority schools operating in the Western Thrace region and the number of pupils studying in these schools, the issue of closed schools, the number of pupils and classrooms in public and minority schools and further referred to the issue of school expenses and the money spent from the state budget for mobile education.
President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe Halit Habip Oğlu (ABTTF) directly responded to Kosmidou’s article, which ignores the educational autonomy of the Turkish community in Western Thrace and reflects the official view of the state and does not include the educational demands of the Turkish community’s institutions and organisations in any way.
First fact: Kosmidou indicated that there are 311 public primary schools in Western Thrace, where 15,250 pupils receive education without discrimination of religion, and that a total of 90 minority primary schools are operating within the framework of the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne and related education protocols, 47 in the prefecture of Rodopi, 34 in the prefecture of Xanthi and 9 in the prefecture of Evros. She further noted that a total of 3,255 pupils are studying in primary schools.
Habip Oğlu: “Although we have educational autonomy in accordance with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, our educational autonomy has been usurped by unilateral laws and circulars since 1972. Until 1977, teachers’ salaries for Turkish lessons in our bilingual schools were paid by the boards elected by parents. This was even the case between 1967 and 1974, when the military junta was in power in our country.”
Second fact: Kosmidou notes that the population is decreasing in the Western Thrace region, as in other parts of Greece, and accordingly, the number of pupils is decreasing, there can be no school without pupils, so schools that are below the number of pupils considered critical are merged to have the minimum number of pupils required.
Habip Oğlu: “Demographic decline constitutes an important issue not only in our country, but also in other European Union Member States and neighbouring countries, but the main reason for the low number of pupils in our elementary schools in our villages in Western Thrace is not the decrease in the population here, but the fact that parents prefer public schools. The reason for this preference is also due to the decrease in the quality of education in our schools with the transfer of our autonomous schools to state control’’.
Third fact: Kosmidou claims that minority education has many privileges, for example, noting that the limit for suspending school activities for public schools is one teacher per classroom and a total of 15 pupils, while the limit for minority schools is two teachers per classroom and a total of 9 pupils, so that these schools are still operating when many minority schools need to discontinue their activities.
Habip Oğlu: “Yes, minority education has many privileges, such as providing bilingual education in both our mother tongue and the language of our country in our schools. If our country had restored our educational autonomy, the number of pupils in our schools and therefore the number of classrooms would have increased’’.
Fourth fact: Kosmidou underscores that while the activities of 19 public schools were suspended in 2023 due to the privileged treatment of minority schools, only 9 minority schools were suspended during the same period, adding that 70% of minority schools in (Western) Thrace are small minority schools, and only 7% of public schools are small public schools.
Habip Oğlu: “Since 1977, when our educational autonomy was usurped and our schools came under state control, the number of pupils in our elementary schools in our villages has been constantly decreasing. In addition, there is not a single Turkish kindergarten in the prefecture of Rodopi, where we constitute the majority of the population, and in the prefecture of Xanthi, where we constitute about half of the population. The number of state kindergartens in each of these two prefectures is 141. Furthermore, there are 25 public secondary schools and high schools in prefecture of Rodopi and 32 public secondary schools and high schools in prefecture of Xanthi, while there is only one Turkish minority secondary school and high school in these two prefectures. While we had 226 elementary schools throughout our region in 2003, this number has decreased to 90 in the 2023-2024 school year. If the state had heard our fair demand that we have expressed for many years and restored our educational autonomy, the classrooms in our schools would be worth more, and our schools would be more than public schools in direct proportion to the population ratio in these two prefectures.”
Fifth fact: Kosmidou notes that the Greek state fully covers the transportation costs of minority students and the operating costs of minority schools, including cleaning, but this financing is managed by the relevant boards, whose members are parents of the pupils and again elected by them, suggesting that this also has a clear impact on the equipment of minority schools and ultimately makes some minority schools superior to public schools in terms of equipment. Claiming that Greece complies with the Treaty of Lausanne and the educational protocols with full respect and creates an impressively privileged support framework for minority education that minorities deserve, Kosmidou states that they have to offer the best environment for all children to develop their skills and abilities, whether in a public school or a minority school.
Habip Oğlu: “Kosmidou’s comparison of the equipment of our elementary schools with that of public schools is completely absurd and preposterous. It is our country that does not comply with the treaties by violating our educational autonomy, which was guaranteed by the Treaty of Lausanne and functioned well from 1923 to 1977, with unilateral laws and practices! If our country restores our educational autonomy, all existing issues will be solved by themselves. Kosmidou says that only the children and their future are important, and the identity of the pupils should be respected. We expect Kosmidou to demonstrate this in practice, not just in words, as an authority holder, and we recommend her to study the minority education model in the German-Danish border region, where full respect for the identity of the pupils is shown and bilingual education is perfectly implemented, as a best practice’’.
*Image/Source: www.gundemgazetesi.com
