Hands off my child, Turks tell Islamist government.

Translation:  Erdoğan: We've changed Turkey's "Midnight Express" image. Our new image.

Hands off my child, Turks tell Islamist government. (AlMonitor).

The new school year in Turkey is scheduled to start on Sept. 15, and is already mired in chaos and controversy.

The system, which took effect this year, outraged both students and parents as thousands of pupils landed in schools dozens of miles away from home. And much to the amusement of Christian parents, a number of Christian students ended up in imam-hatip schools, which teach the Quran and train Muslim clergy.

And while the public awaited an explanation from the Ministry of Education, a new scandal followed: The grandson of Turkey’s chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva was also placed in an imam-hatip school, in the district of Sile outside Istanbul.

Even before the TEOG results were announced last month, speculation was rife that the exam had been designed to promote the imam-hatip schools and lay the ground for a shift to a religious education system. 

The ministry statistics, revealed in the wake of the exam results, confirmed that students were placed in schools they did not wish to attend, namely the imam-hatip schools whose number has kept growing in recent years.

“The constitutional principle that religious education is subject to the students’ and parents’ consent has been eradicated. A process is underway to convert all schools to imam-hatip schools, using religious exploitation,” the lawmaker said.

“[Provincial] education directors have issued circulars demanding that bright students be canalized to imam-hatip high schools. Students and headmasters are under pressure. In Hakkari, even the regional school built by the [secularist] Association for Supporting Contemporary Life has been closed down and converted to an imam-hatip school. They are seeking to raise vengeful, docile and religious generations.”

Since 2000, Turkey has kept vacillating between 42nd and 44th place among 65 countries on the education quality ranking of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

With Turkish schoolchildren turned into guinea pigs, Avci’s TEOG invention, too, appears doomed to survive only until the next minister takes office. Hmmm.....I fear for the future of Europe the way this 'Islamist' dictatorship is evolving, seems Turkey will be way more dangerous than Iran in the near future.Read the full story here.