Education International Research
Violation of trade union rights In Turkey, far from meeting their SDG obligations, the government has violated ILO Conventions 87 (Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise) and 98 (Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining). As a result, Eğitim Sen, the Education and Science Workers’ Union, submitted a report to the ILO in 2018, outlining the violations and instances of anti-union discrimination. Numerous individuals, being members of the union, were dismissed from their school positions (since 2016, over 10,000 Eğitim Sen members have been suspended, and 1,628 members of Eğitim Sen have been dismissed without explanation or the possibility of a fair appeal), relocated to remote areas or prevented from engaging in trade union activities. Most school principals who are members of Eğitim Sen have been dismissed, teachers who are members of pro-government trade unions are favoured for promotions, and most union activities have been banned or prevented by authorities. Velat Kaya, General Secretary of Eğitim Sen, has been subject to a travel ban after being arrested in May 2019. The ban prevented him from attending the International Labour Conference in Geneva, where Turkey’s (lack of) implementation of ILO Convention 87 was to be discussed at the Committee on the Application of Standards.
The Government’s Teacher Strategy 2017–2030: promoting precarious teacher employment This strategy182 is a roadmap for reforms in the education sector until 2030, and as such it should demonstrate how Turkey’s teacher policy is going to support the achievement of SDG 4. On the surface, the strategy appears to support teacher professionalism. The three key objectives of the strategy include highly qualified and well-trained teachers, high-quality teacher CPD, and a highstatus teaching profession. The Minister of Education’s foreword emphasises that teachers are critical actors in any education reforms, and he even notes that “if reform attempts are not interiorised and adopted by teachers and reflected in the classroom, they become unsuccessful”. However, a closer look at the strategy reveals policy proposals that not only detract from teacher professionalism but also threaten students’ right to quality education. The government would like to update and strengthen the “contract teacher” model that was introduced in 2016 following Law 652. The contract model, combined with oral examinations for recruitment and regular performance audits, mean that teachers are employed under precarious conditions and risk being dismissed if they do not comply with the political leanings of the government. According to Eğitim Sen, “teachers are expected to demonstrate loyalty and obedience to political power… being forced to work by using insecure employment as a threat means, in effect, being forced to act for the benefit of the political power, not for our students”.183 Eğitim Sen is strongly resisting the passing of a new law to implement the strategy. The union is organising gatherings, centrally and in four regions of the country, to protest the law.
Increasing politicisation and privatisation of the education system GRO.EI-IE
According to Özgür Bozdogan, Secretary for Education and Higher Education of Eğitim Sen,184 the government’s education reform project is based on two interlinking pillars: Islamicisation and privatisation. These pillars constitute obstacles to many aspects of the SDG 4 agenda: free education, quality ECE, primary, secondary, TVET and higher education, and teaching of ESD and gender equality in education.
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With regard to the first pillar, by publicising their vision for Turkey’s schools to be modernised, the Ministry of Education are introducing system and curricular changes that focus on increasing the influence of religion in schools. The spread of Islamic “Sibyan” early childhood education institutions is understood to be damaging the quality of ECE provision as a result of the use of traditional pedagogies based in direct instruction. Recent curricular reforms have limited the teaching of science 182 See: http://oygm.meb.gov.tr/meb_iys_dosyalar/2018_05/25170118_Teacher_Strategy_Paper_2017-2023.pdf 183 See: https://worldsofeducation.org/en/woe_homepage/woe_detail/16110/udhr70-%E2%80%9Cteachers-must-feel-safe-for-educating-freegenerations%E2%80%9D-by-%C3%B6zg%C3%BCr-bozdogan 184 Interview with EI, 12. 4.19
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