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Bar chairman under fire for discriminatory remarks
Evaluating a recent move by the Higher Education Board (YÖK) to abolish a system of using a lower coefficient to calculate the scores of graduates of vocational high schools on Turkey's university admission exam, the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS), Aydın, on a live TV program earlier this week, implied that graduates from religious schools should never be deemed equal to graduates from other schools.
Asked whether the abolishment of the lower coefficient system would bring equality to students, Aydın said, “Equality is something that should be observed among equal people.”
Aydın's remarks, however, drew the ire of many jurists and activists, who accused the bar chairman of discrimination against religious young people.
“The coefficient system, which was imposed in 1999 and is an injustice against millions of graduates from vocational high schools, has been abolished for the equality and justice of all students. The right to education is under the guarantee of the Constitution. YÖK worked diligently to get rid of an injustice. The İstanbul Bar Association head, however, shows that he stands by injustice with his remarks,” said Kamil Uğur Yaralı, head of the Jurists' Association.
 Union protests bar association's coefficient appeal The Education Personnel Labor Union (Eğitim Bir-Sen) has protested against a recent appeal by the İstanbul Bar Association against a move to abolish a system of using a lower coefficient to calculate the scores of graduates of vocational high schools on Turkey's university admission exam. A group of Eğitim Bir-Sen members convened in front of the bar's building on İstanbul's İstiklal Street yesterday afternoon. “The coefficient system has caused great suffering to graduates of vocational high schools for 11 years,” said a union official. İstanbul Today's Zaman with wires |
Last month the bar appealed to the Council of State against the YÖK move to abolish the coefficient system. The bar stressed in its lawsuit that YÖK's move would be unjust toward students who graduate from high schools other than vocational high schools, Anatolian high schools and science schools. “This move will provide ‘undeserved' gains for a certain group of students,” claimed the bar.
President of the Boğaziçi Lawyers Association Bilal Çalışır argued that Aydın insulted many lawyers affiliated with the İstanbul Bar Association with his remarks.
“There are many bar members who graduated from imam-hatip high schools. Aydın claims that those graduates cannot become lawyers as they did not take math courses. However, he should see all those bar members who are successful in their professions, though they are graduates from imam-hatip high schools,” Çalışır noted.
Ahmet Faruk Ünsal, the chairman of the Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples (MAZLUM-DER), said he was ashamed to witness such discriminatory remarks from a jurist. “What he said has nothing to do with the law or human rights,” Ünsal stated.
The lower coefficient was a byproduct of the Feb. 28, 1997 intervention, which led to the collapse of an Islamic-rooted government and was introduced in an attempt to keep students from religious imam-hatip schools -- classified as vocational schools -- out of universities. The system has been the subject of strong criticism in Turkey as it is considered unfair towards graduates of vocational high schools who want to study at universities.
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