As John Dewey, an experienced educator once said, ‘Education is not preparation for life; it is life itself. ‘ I believe this phrase really shows how significant and important education is for life. Inadequate education results as an increase in the ignorant and narrow minded population. Furthermore, miseducation may cause huge problems within society, such as two groups of people battling against each other for their own ideologies and beliefs.

If these people are more in number, the country as a whole won’t be able to develop at all or can only go one step further, which will actually make no difference. So, we see that education is the foundation of the society. It is the building block. Education makes and helps people to stand up for themselves and allows the country to make progress and live in better and higher standards. Therefore, if education is this important, all countries, especially developing countries need to have a perfect and well organized education system.

Today, friends, I want to talk about the education system in Turkey – how it is being run and what we obtain from it as a result. First of all, I believe that there are many mistakes being made, but the primary problem being the “Imamhatip” type schools, where students are forced to believe in many things which are not true at all, and the education is based upon religion – which has actually been misinterpreted by the teachers and the directors. In these schools, all the girls are forced to wear headscarfs.

Wearing them is not a big crisis actually, as headscarfs could be looked at as a symbol of Islam and only the people who are eager to wear them do so, but the problem is that mostly these students believe that everyone around them should also be like them. Without realising, these people are indoctrinated in these schools. The kind of education taught in “imamhatips” shake and agitate the order of the whole system in Turkey. For example, when one “imamatip” student wants to enter a university, it becomes huge dilemma. It usually takes a long time for the directors to decide.

There are problems between students from normal schools and the “imamhatip” students, even after they enter the university. Since their thoughts and beliefs are totally different, and they have been taught absolutely different things, there have been and will be arguments and fights continuously. This has to end! Every time an “Imamhatip” student wants to enter a university, the whole country gets into an arguement and people divide up into groups and try to persuade each other with what they believe in. Another very big problem in Turkey is that the education given is not adequate or it is not reaching all parts of the country.

Not only this, but also some children do not get the chance to go to schools because of poverty or because their parents do not allow them to. Especially in many places around the north, east and southeast of Turkey, there are not enough schools and not many teachers – and those who do teach are usually less experienced anyway. Also, neither the quality of the schools, nor the teachers nor the education is close to the quality of these in bigger cities in the western parts of Turkey. It is a shame that education is not accessible at same standards throughout the whole of the country.

Your education is worth what you are worth and I believe and see no reason for people not recieving a perfect education at perfect standards. Not only that the education given is not excellent, but also, there are many parents, who don’t allow their children to go to school. It is terrible to still see these kinds of problems in this century. I mean, we expect people to think more wisely and have a wider view of the world, but as we can see, it is not happenning as it should. Every child needs to have the right to access education! This is what they need! This is what the country needs!

Better educated people is the solution. Why do you think that some parents do not let their children go to school – apart from the fact of poverty? Well, they are not well educated either, and they have no idea how important education is! They think that they are doing the right thing by making their children work at young ages, but perhaps, they are stopping them from becoming the second Einstein! These are not all the problems we have in Turkey’s education system. There are many more, but we have to take one step at a time so every move we make is strong and permanent.

Every powerful move made will take Turkey a step forward. Eventually, every improvement made in the education system will clear out the ignorance and thus the country will be able to make progress and develop. So, friends, will you not like to leave an education system for your sons, daughters and grandchildren, which you can actually trust will be correct, useful and adequate? Do you not want them to live in a developed country unlike we do, now? I believe we all do and so we shall all get together, give hand to hand and do our best for the new generations!