Plans to ban non-Turkish speakers from schools in north Cyprus ‘unconstitutional’

Plans laid out by the TRNC’s ‘education minister’ Nazim Cavusoglu to forbid children who do not speak Turkish from attending schools in the country are “unconstitutional”, Turkish Cypriot teachers’ trade union Ktos chairman Burak Mavis said on Tuesday.

Cavusoglu had said on Monday night that under his current plans, no non-Turkish Cypriot will be allowed to attend a public school in the TRNC if they do not possess a certificate proving good knowledge of the Turkish language, “even if they are born in the TRNC and speak Turkish”.

He said possession of a Turkish language certificate will be mandatory for all children joining schools north Cyprus, as well as for all children transferring from private schools to public schools.

“With this step, we are very close to eliminating the problems which public schools exist in this regard,” he said.

However, Mavis was less than impressed by the announcement, telling the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday that at present, only paid Turkish language courses are offered in north Cyprus, meaning that parents of children who do not speak Turkish would be forced to pay for their children to get an education.

This, he said, violates article 59 of the north’s ‘constitution’, which states that “every child, regardless of gender, has the right to compulsory education until the age of 15 and free education until the age of 18.”

It also states that, “the state takes the necessary measures to raise those who need special education in and out of school due to their circumstances.”

Children at schools in the north not speaking Turkish has been a growing issue in recent years, with opposition political party CTP leader Tufan Erhurman having asked in ‘parliament’ in May, “how many schools will you build and in what language will you provide education in an area consisting of 5,000 people, all from abroad?”

His fellow CTP ‘MP’ Biray Hamzaogullari had last year also raised alarm bells over the situation at the Bekirpasha high school in Iskele, where he lives, saying that 300 of the 700 children at the village’s Bekirpasha high school “do not speak Turkish as their first language”.

He had added, “in some classes there are 14 children who don’t know Turkish and only nine who do. Among those 14 there are at least three different languages. How can a teacher give a lesson in these circumstances?”

At the time, he had called for “preparatory classes” for children who do not speak Turkish and claimed the ‘education ministry’ “did nothing about [the issue]”.