News Centre
Reactions and discussions continue regarding the report prepared by the Ministry of National Education (MEB) on shortening the duration of secondary education and submitted to the palace.
Sol Genç published a statement on its official social media account regarding the issue, stating, “The AKP regime has caused great destruction in education with its reactionary, market-oriented policies for years.’ Now they are preparing for even greater destruction. The one-man regime, which has declared war on secular, free, public education, wants to place education under the monopoly of capital and religious orders, which have been encircling schools and universities for years, through steps to shorten and flexibilise compulsory education.”
The statement pointed out that education is being stripped of its status as a public right, adding that shortening the duration of education serves no other purpose than to create cheap labour and respond to the demands of capital.
The full statement, titled ‘Compulsory education cannot be shortened!’, reads as follows:
“The long-standing agenda of the one-man regime is to shorten and flexibilise compulsory, public education, taking away the right to secular, equal, free, quality education from students. For months, the sect, MÜSİAD, TÜSİAD, the political regime, and the affiliated media have been united in calling for compulsory education to be shortened. The aim is to build an education system suitable for the new regime, for the needs of imperialism and capitalism.
The presentation on shortening compulsory education at the cabinet meeting indicates that the process of targeting the right to education will accelerate in the coming days.
With the statement that ‘the budget allocated to education is a heavy burden on the state,’ the aim is to remove the right to education as a public right and turn it into a commodity that can only be purchased with money.
They say that shortening the duration of education will prevent cheap labour at an early age, that they want more child labourers, and that they want free labour whose wages are paid for from public resources.
By shortening and flexibilising the duration of education, they aim to turn schools into institutions for finding child labourers under names such as factory-school and classroom-free school. They are working desperately to bring child labour down to secondary school level by turning vocational high schools and vocational secondary schools into MESEMs.
Those who send their own children to the most expensive private schools at home and abroad are promoting MESEM and child labour to the children of the people, the workers.
They call for more child marriages for students under the age of 18, saying that the length of education is an ‘obstacle to starting a family.’ Accompanied by cries of the sacred family and the family year, they are once again targeting the rights of women and girls, their right to education.
Shortening the university period is not independent of these steps. They say that the shorter the education period, the earlier cheap labour is available for employers. They are squandering the people’s resources, saying to employers and corporate sect structures, ‘We have given you everything you have wanted until now, and we will give you even more.’
They say that child marriage, child labour, and death in workplace accidents are the destiny of the people, of the children of the working class, using rhetoric about destiny and nature.
For years, the AKP regime has caused great destruction in education with its reactionary, market-oriented policies. Now they are preparing for an even greater destruction. The one-man regime, which has declared war on secular, free, public education, wants to bring education under the monopoly of capital and sects that have been encircling schools and universities for years, through steps such as shortening and flexibilising compulsory education. We will not allow our friends, who are to be exploited at a young age, to be exploited by market-oriented capital.
We will hold this regime accountable, which has victimised millions of our classmates by stealing exam questions for years, which has encircled schools and universities with its capital and sects, which has declared war on secular education, which, under the guise of saving money, does not even distribute one free meal to schools, and which has hollowed out the education system!
We will not allow you to imprison our lives and our right to education!
The reactionary and market-oriented policies of the AKP-MHP regime, which seeks legitimacy in the White House, have no legitimacy in the eyes of students and the people!
We will not give up our struggle for secular, free, equal, and scientific education!
The Palace and its minister Yusuf Tekin, who are trying to imprison us in reactionary darkness between the wheels of exploitation, will be silenced. The youth will speak!”
Note: This article is translated from the original article titled Sol Genç’ten açıklama: Zorunlu eğitim kısaltılamaz!, published in BirGün newspaper on October 20, 2025.
