After Democratic Society Party (DTP) deputy from Batman Ayla Akad Ata brought up the issue of one school -- an elementary school in Sason, Batman province -- in her district that was located in gendarmerie barracks to the agenda of Parliament and demanded its removal from the barracks, the Ministry of Education began to take steps to move all such schools under military control to a place overseen by civilian authorities.
Speaking to Today’s Zaman Ata said the situation and removal of the school in Sason is complicated. She said the gendarmerie barracks were constructed on land belonging to the school and its surroundings. The ministry now wants to remove the school but allow the barracks to stay. “I have been telling officials at the Ministry of Education about this for months. As I’ve been told by the General Directorate of Elementary Schools, the gendarmerie set its barracks up after the school began to operate. The land belongs to the Ministry of Education,” Ata noted and emphasized that schoolchildren go to school surrounded by military barracks and under the shadow of guns. “This clearly shows the level of democracy in our country,” she added.
Ata also said public housing built for teachers working at the school has been taken over by the military and that military personnel now stay there. “The school building is one of the few modern buildings in the region, so the gendarmerie barracks should be removed, not the school,” she said.
General Directorate of Elementary Schools head İbrahim Er said the land and public housing units belong to the Ministry of Education but noted that the ministry is searching for a new building for the school. “We told the Gendarmerie General Command [JGK] about the situation, but they said the gendarmerie cannot find another place for its barracks,” he said.
Because schools in the southeastern and eastern provinces were one of the main targets of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) between the years 1980 and 2000, schools were placed inside facilities run by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). However, now that the PKK threat has passed, schools are looking to move back into the civilian sphere. PKK militants have killed 176 teachers in the region since 1984.
The Ministry of Education plans to relocate all schools currently on military property. The government’s democratization initiative, launched in August, seeks to grant more rights to Turkey’s Kurds and suggests relocating these schools to areas under civilian control. The “civilianization of education” will see to it that two more schools in the region are relocated. Necessary steps to see this happens will be taken by the Ministry of Education in cooperation with the gendarmerie and the TSK.
