Page 26 - IO1-Report

KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for School Education
The Universal Language of Mathematics (2018-1-TR01-KA201-059704)

Undersecretary for Education) states “If we cannot educate these pupils, they will fall into the wrong
hands, they are going to be exploited by gangs or criminals and we are trying to improve the standards
in our country which means also improving standards for Syrians.” (Reuters, 2015).
When the so called ‘mass migrations’ have started in 2011, Temporary Education Centers (TEC’s) started
to operate for Syrian children in and outside the camps where the language of instruction was Arabic
and the Syrian Curriculum was followed by Syrian and Turkish teachers. Only the ones registered in the
camps were being monitored by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). By the end of 2014, MoNE
began registering non-camp TEC’s so that they could be incorporated into the national education
system. Also, MoNE supervised the Syrian baccalaureate exam (upon completion high school) that will
be recognized by Turkish universities in 2015 (HRW, 2015). After MoNE began registering non-camp
TEC’s they also made Turkish public schools officially available for all Syrian primary and secondary
school-aged pupils with the condition of them being registered in the temporary protection beneficiary
of the government. As long as they have been able to present their foreigner ID’s, they were eligible to
register at any Turkish public school free of charge. After a while MoNE has started to view temporary
education centers as “transitional schools” to prepare Syrian children before attending public schools
with their Turkish peers. This new view was thought to help the social inclusion and integration of these
children into the Turkish society and educational system. By this end MoNE has planned to gradually
close down TEC’s until 2020. Starting with 2016, all first graders (preschool, primary, secondary and
high school) then had to register in a Turkish public school in order to promote the process of inclusion;
at the same time these children were offered extra courses like Arabic, Syrian History and Culture etc.
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about their own identities and cultures.

Figure 5: Syrian Student’s Access to Education in Turkey (Akyuz et al. 2019)

As we can see from the table above, the plan on the gradual phase-out of the TEC’s seemed to work
with an almost 4 times higher registration rate in public schools. The plan of the phase-out of the TEC’s

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see also: https://www.meb.gov.tr/demirci-gemler-uc-yil-icinde-misyonunu-tamamlayacak/haber/11850/tr
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