'Islamist Turkey' - Turkish deputy speaker: Mixed-gender education a mistake, to be corrected.

'Islamist Turkey' - Turkish deputy speaker: Mixed-gender education a mistake, to be corrected.(TZ).

Deputy Parliament Speaker Sadık Yakut said on Wednesday that Turkey made a mistake in allowing coeducation and promised that efforts to correct that mistake would come soon.

Delivering a speech at the Turkish Parliament's 14th International Forum on Children, Yakut said, “Turkey made a historic mistake in allowing the education of male and female students at the same schools in moves toward Westernization.”He added that there are Western schools in Turkey where coeducation is not allowed.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan set off an international controversy in early November when he spoke out -- and threatened government action -- against male and female students living together.

Erdoğan recently reiterated his opposition to mixed-gender student housing and said his government has a responsibility to uphold Turkish values.He said the nation was against mixed-gender student housing and that as a conservative, democratic party, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) needs to act within its value system and within the boundaries defined by law.

Erdoğan said his party was committed to protecting the culture, beliefs and values of Turkish society. “We don't impose values on society. We preserve values, and we oppose attempts to impose other values.” He said his government would never give up its conservative identity just because some groups are unhappy with it.Hmmm.....“Thank God Almighty,” said Mr. Erdogan in 1994, when he was the mayor of Istanbul. “I am a servant of Shariah.”