Critics Say Turkey’s Education Circular Prioritizes Political Control Over Students’ Needs

Turkey’s Ministry of National Education has issued a 46-page circular titled "Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı 2026-2027 Eğitim ve Öğretim Yılına İlişkin İş ve İşlemler Genelgesi" to schools ahead of the new academic year. The document and the public response to it highlight deep tensions between the ministry’s stated administrative priorities and longstanding social and economic problems affecting students and educators across the country.

Critics say the circular largely omits the pressing material realities that shape students’ lives. The article points to a national context in which the statutory minimum wage stands at 28,075 lira and many pensioners must subsist on averages of 20,000–25,000 lira. In such conditions, families and students face severe difficulties in meeting basic needs including nutrition, housing and transportation. Observers argue the ministry’s guidance fails to center these issues, even as overcrowded classrooms of 40–50 students, limited cleaning staff hired through İŞKUR-driven processes, and shortages of basic sanitary supplies in school toilets remain commonplace.

Beyond infrastructure and basic services, the piece catalogs a range of problems in the education system that the circular appears not to address. These include the insufficient follow-up for children needing special education, libraries stocked with outdated material, lack of sports facilities in schools, long school days of eight to ten hours that leave students with little energy for social development, and reports that vocational training centers (MESEM) have seen child laborers die. Media coverage last year also drew attention to violent incidents and organized crime links involving youths aged 13–18, and to growing concerns about drug use among young people.

Instead of responding to these material and safety concerns, the article contends, the ministry’s measures increasingly prioritize ideological control. Over recent years, policies and projects have been introduced that critics say narrow the autonomy of individual teachers and schools, burden educators with extensive bureaucratic reporting and checklists, prescribe lists of approved textbooks, and set up monitoring systems to ensure those lists are followed. The result, according to the article, is a system that channels peer oversight through school principals, vice-principals and teachers of the same subject, with a final escalation path to CİMER — the presidential communication center — creating incentives for internal surveillance and complaint-driven control.

A focal point of controversy is what the article calls the "önlük dayatması" — a dress-code enforcement that has become visible in public debates. The piece links this policy to a broader political agenda it says is driven by the AKP-MHP coalition: a campaign to exert control over women’s bodies and reproductive choices that has already shown itself in measures ranging from policing morality narratives to de facto restrictions on abortion. The article notes that efforts by political authorities to encourage higher birth rates and to reshape reproductive and social institutions align with other measures such as a reported desire to reduce the length of high school to two years and the promotion of elective courses that emphasize Turkish ethnic identity and Sunni Islam (for example, "Türk Sosyal Hayatında Aile").

The broader pattern, the article argues, is part of a mid- to long-term political strategy to bring municipal bodies, cultural actors, universities, sports teams and the digital sphere under centralized control. It cites examples ranging from actions taken by local governments (such as Üsküdar Belediyesi) to censorship or oversight affecting artists like Mabel Matiz and the autonomy of teachers. The piece suggests that the ministry’s approach is built not only on administrative regulation but on creating reporting and informant mechanisms within schools, framing them as the education-sector counterpart to what was once described as the coup-era "muhbir vatandaş".

Amid these developments, the article highlights the continuing effort of organized former teachers and groups committed to autonomous, democratic public education — like those associated with the TÖBDER tradition — to resist and sustain collective organizing. It warns that as veteran teachers retire, the constrictive practices the ministry promotes may face less institutional pushback. Observers and activists contend that without policy shifts that prioritize students’ material welfare, school safety and genuine pedagogical autonomy, the education system will become an increasingly effective instrument of political control rather than a public sphere for critical learning and equal opportunity.