Education minister backs collaboration with religious groups as NGOs

Education Minister Yusuf Tekin has defended the ministry's collaboration with religiously-affiliated communities, asserting that such entities were rightfully classified as nongovernmental organizations.

Tekin, addressing opposition MPs in a parliamentary session on Dec. 17, disclosed that the ministry currently holds a total of 2,709 protocols, with 1,167 established in conjunction with official institutions and the remainder with NGOs.

"Among these, we have 10 protocols with the structures you call sects and congregations but we call NGOs," Tekin stated. "I express my gratitude to those who serve and support us through these protocols. We will persist in establishing protocols with them."

The minister responded to critique from the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) ranks, instead redirecting attention to these NGO's perceived "obstruction of children heading to the mountains," insinuating the alleged ties between the pro-Kurdish party and the terror organization PKK.

During the May elections, the party's precursor, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which is at risk of closure due to these claimed links, strategically nominated its parliamentary candidates on the lists of Green Left Party (YSP), now the DEM Party, garnering nearly 5 million votes.

Tekin expounded on this during the session, asserting, "You are upset because these NGOs, with whom we have a protocol, are preventing you from taking children to the mountains. I will continue to sign protocols with those NGOs so that my children don't go to the mountains, so that I don't raise people for your human resources."