Rise in imam-hatips shows AKP’s favoritism for religious education

The massive rise in the number of imam-hatip religious schools in the last four years shows how the AKP has been championing a more conservative education system, according to education reformer Batuhan Aydagül. The number of schools is up 73 percent in just four years, he says Turkey’s government is engaged in positive discrimination toward religious vocational schools known as imam-hatips, according to Batuhan Aydagül, the head of the Education Reform Initiative (ERG).

The fact that there are 73 percent more imam-hatips over 2010 shows the “political and bureaucratic will and support” behind the schools, he said.

We keep hearing of parents complaining that they are left with no option but to send their children to imam-hatip schools.

I think it’s important to clarify how imam-hatip schools are different from other vocational or Anatolian high schools. The difference is not much in what is taught but whether or not religion courses are compulsory or not. If you attend an imam-hatip school, three of the religious courses you have to take are compulsory, so the number of courses that you can take as electives are less than a general Anatolian high school. 

As such, it is not completely a different religious curriculum. However, these schools, as it is known by the Turkish general public, have a very significant historical meaning. In fact, both the 1997 Compulsory Education Law and the 2012 “4+4+4 School Reform” [converting the eight-year obligatory system into three blocks] are all about imam-hatip high schools. The underlying driving force is to shut them off in the [1997] Compulsory Education Law and to reopen them with the 4+4+4 Law. Since the Justice and...