Feray Aytekin Aydoğan
The most compelling definition of the word ‘Republic’ is ‘the protector of the orphaned.’ The Republic ensured that the right to education was accessible not only to a handful of elites, the palace and its courtiers, but to the children of the people. The Republic was the hope of creating a future through education.
In 1861 in Niš, and in 1864 in Rusçuk and Sofia, reformatories were opened where orphaned children were taught trades such as tailoring, weaving, shoemaking, and hat-making. Education for orphans was tailored to the needs of employers: the content, duration, and method of education were determined by the employers’ demands.
The aim of vocational education was to turn the children of the poor and the working class into cheap labour at an early age. That is precisely why none of the children of the employers, ministers or MPs who praise the Vocational Education Centre (MESEM) are in MESEMs.
Around the world and in our country, education is being redesigned to build a regime that serves the needs of employers. The lot of countries like ours is for their children and young people to become cheap labour for national and international capital. To be tied to imperialism.
That is why the right to public and compulsory education, a gain of the Republic, the class, and the workers, is being targeted. With four new school models, schools, teachers, equal, free, scientific education is being taken away from children. A plan is being implemented whereby almost all schools in the country will be vocational schools (vocational and imam hatip schools), and academic education will only be available at private schools.
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Education is being stripped of its status as a right. Through protocols, public schools are being distributed to companies under the guise of ‘stakeholders.’ Schools are being transformed from educational institutions into centres for finding child labour.
Education Minister Yusuf Tekin recently met again with the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), with whom he regularly convenes on 23 October. The Minister stated that they ‘considered the division of labour with these companies as a necessity in the provision of public services.’ Can public services or the public interest exist when public services and companies are combined? Isn’t the transfer of public services to companies called marketisation?
For months, they have been signing protocols with TOBB and companies without pause. Immediately after this meeting, the ‘Vocational and Technical Education Cooperation Protocol for the Agricultural Sector’ was signed between TOBB and the Ministry of National Education (MEB). Thirty vocational high schools in different provinces were paired with chambers of commerce and industry. This is the construction of education in line with the new regime, where schools are criticised for their links with companies and are being transferred to companies.
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On 1 December, a comprehensive vocational education programme will be announced with the participation of President Erdoğan of the AKP, and most likely by himself.
This programme is not about education or vocational education. This programme is about designing education to suit the new regime. This programme is about the liquidation of the teaching profession, the first steps of which have been taken with the National Education Academy and the Teaching Profession Law. It is about bringing the teaching profession into line with the new regime. It is about eliminating the school nature of schools and turning them into child labour recruitment agencies from secondary school and even primary school onwards.
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Cumhuriyet’in 102’nci yılında: Okullar şirketlere paylaştırılıyor, published in BirGün newspaper on October 30, 2025.
