{"id":60971,"date":"2012-12-14T01:21:57","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T23:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=60971"},"modified":"2023-07-26T10:58:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-26T07:58:16","slug":"turkeys-last-armenian-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2012\/12\/14\/turkeys-last-armenian-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s last Armenian schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turkey\u2019s last Armenian schools<\/h1>\n
Turkey has never banned the Armenian schools that teach the community\u2019s language and culture. But its support is marginal and the schools, like the language, are losing their place<\/div>\n
by Aziz Oguz<\/div>\n
\n

\u201cDon\u2019t close the door,\u201d Mari Nalc\u0131, who has been head of the Tarman\u00e7as school for 25\u00a0years, told me as I went into her office; she seemed not to trust me. Armenians in Turkey are cautious, especially when you ask questions about education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem of security for schools has become very important, especially since Hrant Dink was assassinated,\u201d Garo Paylan, an Armenian schools representative, had told me. The murder of this well-known Armenian journalist by a Turkish nationalist in\u00a02007 revived old fears\u00a0(1<\/span>). Mari Nalc\u0131\u2019s school bristles with CCTV cameras; there are bars on the windows and a security man, Attila Sen, at the door. Sen is friendly, but as intransigent as a prison guard: nobody gets in without an appointment. \u201cWe\u2019ve never had a problem,\u201d he said, \u201cbut some local people are suspicious of the school. Fortunately, prejudices disappear when they get to know us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school is in Ortak\u00f6y, near the Bosphorus Bridge that links Istanbul\u2019s two halves. Ortak\u00f6y used to be one of the most cosmopolitan districts of the Ottoman Empire\u2019s capital, and was home to many Jews, Greeks and Armenians. There are two mosques, four Christian churches and two synagogues. Today Kurds have replaced the Armenians, and only a few Armenian families remain. The school\u2019s 500\u00a0pupils are ferried here by minibus from all over the city.<\/p>\n

There are 16 Armenian schools in Turkey, five of them secondary schools, with around 3,000\u00a0pupils in all. They are all in Istanbul, where most of Turkey\u2019s 60,000\u00a0Armenians live. The only admission requirement is that pupils must have at least one parent of Armenian origin.<\/p>\n

These schools date back to the Ottoman Empire, when every community was responsible for organising its own education system and there were thousands of Armenian schools. After the Armenian genocide of 1915-16, in which one to 1 to 1.5\u00a0million people perished (nearly two-thirds of the Ottoman Empire\u2019s Armenian population), and later massacres and exoduses, there are relatively few Armenians in Turkey, and just these 16\u00a0schools.<\/p>\n

A hybrid system<\/h3>\n

The Turkish republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in\u00a01923 did not challenge the existence of community schools but set up a hybrid system: the Armenian schools were placed under state control without being made public institutions. The ministry of education appointed a Turkish deputy principal for each school. Teachers employed by the state gave lessons in Turkish language, history and geography, while other subjects where taught in Armenian by teachers paid by the schools\u2019 foundations.<\/p>\n

In 1974, when Turkey intervened militarily in Cyprus, the state took measures against its Christian communities. \u201cUntil then, the state funded schools, even if very modestly, under the terms of the Lausanne treaty [signed in\u00a01923 with the European powers]. But after\u00a01974 that aid ceased. The state doesn\u2019t trust us,\u201d said Paylan. All the schools are therefore linked to foundations. If they have endowments, the interest can be used to fund education; otherwise they rely on charity from their community. Parents don\u2019t pay regular fees for education; if financial contributions are required, they vary according to family income.<\/p>\n

The mission of these schools is to keep language and culture alive. But there are two major obstacles: the Turkish state and time. Armenian is not taught anywhere else in Turkey. There are no university courses in Armenian language or culture. Turkey doesn\u2019t train any teachers of Armenian. Teachers are chosen by the school foundation and must be approved by the ministry of education. They learn Armenian at home and perfect their knowledge of the language through personal study outside of any academic framework.<\/p>\n

Mari Kalayac\u0131 became a teacher by chance. She had a business management degree, but couldn\u2019t find a job, and was advised to change careers. She has taught Armenian for seven years, two of them in Ortak\u00f6y, and admits that without this job she would not know her mother tongue so well: \u201cI learned a huge amount when I began teaching. And I\u2019m still learning.\u201d Her pupils\u2019 receptiveness varies. \u201cArmenian is a difficult language. Some of them have no trouble with it, but others really struggle.\u201d Pupils at the Ortak\u00f6y school speak Turkish among themselves most of the time. \u201cThey live in Turkey. It\u2019s natural that they should speak Turkish,\u201d said Nalc\u0131. The Turkish education system does not make learning Armenian easy: \u201cIn high school, some of my friends didn\u2019t go to Armenian classes. There was no penalty,\u201d said Murat Gozoglu, who was educated in Armenian schools. The important entrance exams for high school and university are all taken in Turkish.<\/p>\n

Not all Armenian parents send their children to a community school. And those who do attend may not stay the course \u2014 most switch after primary school or junior high. \u201cArmenian schools, especially the secondary schools, don\u2019t have the highest reputation. Sometimes they are seen as a fallback. Parents would rather send their children to an English, French or German school,\u201d said Nora Mildanoglu. She went to an Armenian primary school before the English-speaking Robert College, one of Istanbul\u2019s most prestigious high schools.<\/p>\n

Attitudes have changed in Turkey, which has opened up to minorities, who now find it easier to assert their identities. \u201cNow I\u2019m not afraid to speak Armenian in public,\u201d said Kalayac\u0131. \u201cWhen I was little I would never call my mother mama<\/em>. I\u2019d say anne<\/em> [in Turkish] so that no one knew we were Christians.\u201d Yet the Armenian language and culture are gradually disappearing in Turkey. \u201cArmenian is spoken very little in family homes today. There is no longer a popular Armenian culture,\u201d said Paylan. \u201cChildren are just taught the basics so that they can get by in everyday situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarkis Seropyan, cofounder of Agos,<\/em> the Armenian community\u2019s main newspaper, is not surprised. \u201cFew Armenians in Turkey speak the language. The proof is that most articles in Agos<\/em> are in Turkish.\u201d Only four pages out of\u00a024 are in Armenian. \u201cOtherwise no one would buy the paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Armenian community has realised that the schools alone cannot revive the language. But under the last major education reform, this spring, the teaching of Armenian was ruled out in state schools. The Armenians will have to make do with the current system.<\/p>\n

Source : https:\/\/mondediplo.com\/2012\/12\/16armenia<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkey\u2019s last Armenian schools Turkey has never banned the Armenian schools that teach the community\u2019s language and culture. But its support is marginal and the schools, like the language, are losing their place by Aziz Oguz \u201cDon\u2019t close the door,\u201d Mari Nalc\u0131, who has been head of the Tarman\u00e7as school for 25\u00a0years, told me as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":51702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939],"tags":[1414,4325],"class_list":["post-60971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart","tag-armenian","tag-armenians-in-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}