Discrimination

Discrimination in Turkey’s Education System 53
impossible to translate into Turkish, and thus students
would still have difficulties when answering
questions about Christianity that are asked in
Turkish. 125
For students studying at Armenian schools no
solution has yet been found to the problem. Upon
the request of the MoNE, Armenian schools shared
with the Ministry their RCaM syllabuses, and requested
that if questions related to Christianity
were included in the TEOG exam they be prepared
in Armenian since this is the language of instruction
for the RCaM courses at these schools. So far
this demand has not been met. 126
Here it should be pointed out that even though
a solution has been found for the Jewish school,
as outlined above, representatives of the Jewish
school and Armenian schools stated in their interviews
that no matter what kind of solution was
found, they did not find it appropriate for any
questions on any religion or belief to be asked
in placement exams. As there are no faculties of
theology that train teachers for the RCaM courses
in minority schools, these lessons are generally
taught by homeroom teachers or other subject
teachers. The administrators of some minority
schools state that RCaM is not a subject that is given
high priority in their schools because their students
can receive religious instruction from their
own religious institutions if they so choose. 127 They
also point out that since questions about RCaM
lessons are included in the TEOG exams, students
125 Telephone interview with an administrator of a
Greek school, 20 June 2015.
126 Interview with an administrator of an Armenian
school, Istanbul, 19 June 2015. For a news report
on this issue see Uygar Gültekin, ‘TEOG Krizi
Sürüyor, MEB Adım Atmıyor’, Agos, 12 November
2014, http://www.agos.com.tr/tr/yazi/8446/teogkrizi-suruyor-meb-adim-atmiyor
127 Telephone interview with an administrator of the
Jewish school, 19 June 2015. An administrator
of an Armenian school also stated that since
Armenian schools were located next to churches,
students who wished to do so could easily receive
religious instruction in church outside school
hours. Interview with an administrator of an
Armenian school, Istanbul, 19 June 2015.
need to spend a lot of time studying for this lesson
and preparing for the exam. 128
The problem in question continues at other
schools for students who are exempt from
the RCaM course. The Association of Protestant
Churches expresses its concerns as follows:
‘Christian parents have a concern about TEOG in particular.
They have expressed these concerns to the
Ministry of National Education, and the response they
received was that, in short, there would be absolutely
no loss of rights. However, recommendation number
2014/3164 from the Ombudsman Institution to the Ministry
of National Education dated 2 October 2014 stated
that it found that there was inequality for students who
were exempt from this course and that this needed to be
rectified. No satisfactory response has yet been received
from the MoNE.’ 129
There also remains a disadvantage for Jewish
students who do not attend the Jewish school. In
the TEOG exam, Jewish students who are exempt
from the compulsory RCaM course are treated as
though they did not answer the questions related
to RCaM lessons, and therefore these students unfairly
receive lower scores. In one interview, an administrator
at the Jewish High School stated that
if Jewish students studying at state schools or private
schools who wish to continue their education
at private schools receive a low score on the TEOG
exam, this score is still enough for their registration
at those schools, but that for other students
who wish to study at Anatolian and Science High
Schools, even a 0.1 point difference is of great consequence
in the placement ranking, and that the
impact of the disadvantage in this area is therefore
very serious. 130
The development of a unified exam system that
assumes the same characteristics and conditions
for all students, while ignoring that there are students
living in Turkey who adhere to different reli-
128 Telephone interview with an administrator of the
Jewish school, 19 June 2015.
129 Association of Protestant Churches, op. cit.
130 Telephone interview with an administrator of a
Jewish school, 19 June 2015.