Ottomanism a guise for Islamic ambitions, prominent Turkish historian says.

Ottomanism a guise for Islamic ambitions, prominent Turkish historian says. (HD).

A prominent Turkish historian has argued that today's political Islamists use Ottomanism as a guise for their ulterior motives to reach the Islamic "Golden Age."

“Ottomanism is a flashy cover, a guise for the Islamist front in Turkey. What they really seek is the ‘Age of Happiness’ [the term used to describe the Prophet Muhammad’s lifetime]. They use the Ottomans as a guise to reach there,” Prof. İlber Ortaylı told Hürriyet in an interview published on Oct. 22.

Ortaylı, a professor of history at Galatasaray University in Istanbul and at Bilkent University in Ankara, also challenged the notion that the Ottoman Empire was supranational. “The Ottomans were not above nations. Turkishness was [in the core] of the Ottomans,” he said.

The recent debate regarding religious education in Turkey is not being conducted on a healthy ground, according to Ortaylı.

“A society can have religious education, but it has to be with quality. Now the government is increasingly opening more [religious vocational] imam hatip schools, as was done in previous decades by other parties. But are these schools producing any religious scholars?” he asked. Read the full story here.

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.

Turkey - Non-Muslim Armenian students, with failing grades placed in Islamic high schools.

Non-Muslim Armenian students, with failing grades placed in Islamic high schools. HT: TodaysZaman.

Two non-Muslim students have been automatically enrolled in imam-hatip high schools -- which provide Islamic religious education -- after they received low marks on the Transition from Primary to Secondary Education (TEOG) exam held in June, a media report has revealed.

According to a report by the Hürriyet daily, one of the students, Arda Christof A., an ethnic Armenian, received a score of 257.3422 on the exam -- too low to enter schools other than imam-hatip high schools -- and was automatically enrolled in the school, prompting a negative reaction by the student and his family.

All eighth grade students who will enroll in high schools in Turkey must take the TEOG exam, forcing them to make a choice between two options if they fail to get high enough scores on the exam: vocational schools or imam-hatip schools. And if they fail to choose one, most are automatically enrolled in imam-hatip high schools.


Hmmmm....Makes me wonder, you don't need grades to become a Turkish Imam?Read the full story here.

Turkey implements project for free tablet computers in schools.

Turkey implements project for free tablet computers in schools.(Taz).

Turkey has launched the FATIH project, under which 775,000 teachers and students of the country's public schools will be provided with tablet computers free of charge, Turkish TV channel TRT Haber reported on Feb. 17.

The ceremony launching the project was attended by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Under the FATIH project some 675,000 ninth-grade students and 100,000 teachers in 3,500 of the country's schools will get free tablet computers.

The project also includes installation of 80,000 "smart boards" in classrooms. The "smart boards" will be synchronized with tablet computers, making it will be possible to conduct interactive lessons.

The FATIH project was launched as a pilot program in some schools in February 2012 by the General Directorate for Innovation and Educational Technology (YEĞİTEK) of the Turkish National Education Ministry.
As of 2013, some 60,165 public schools are operating in Turkey, according to the National Education Ministry.Hmmmm.....Comes pre loaded with the Koran and Erdogan speeches?

France - Muslim Brotherhood "Imam' School embedded deep in Burgundy.

France - Muslim Brotherhood "Imam' School embedded deep in Burgundy.(HD). Deep in the wooded hills of Burgundy in central France, an unusual institute is training unusual students: aspiring French imams who hope to minister to the country’s large Muslim population. Early in the morning, some 200 students from across the country stream into the European Institute of Human Sciences de Saint-Leger-de-Fougeret, where they learn to chant the Koran and study Islamic theology and Arabic literature.
Estimates of France’s Muslim population vary widely, from between 3.5 million and 6 million, though there is little hard evidence as to how many are practising. In any event, France’s Muslim community is the largest in Western Europe.
The initiative goes back 20 years when the Union of Islamic Organizations in France, which has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, converted a former children’s holiday centre into the institute.
Its stated aim is to train imams equipped “with a solid knowledge of Islam and the socio-cultural realities of Europe.” The idea was to provide an alternative to the recruitment of foreign imams, who often spoke no French and had little or no knowledge of French lifestyles. “The training of imams who are products of French society is vital: Today 70 percent of the faithful don’t speak Arabic,” said the institute’s director Zuhair Mahmood. Initially financed by the Gulf States, the school depends heavily on fees of about 3,400 euros a year, board and lodging included. At break time men, often bearded, and women, all of them wearing head scarves, wait for coffee. The women can follow the 20 hours of weekly courses but cannot become imams.Hmmmm.......Obama says the Koran teaches that, "Be it man or woman, each of you is equal to the other."Read the full story here.

"No Child Left Behind Obama Style" - Michigan test scores reveal a country in steep decline.

"No Child Left Behind Obama Style" - Michigan test scores reveal a country in steep decline.(TT).Racial gaps in Michigan exam results a concern.Michigan educators have spent years trying to address the persistent gap in achievement between white and minority students, but Michigan Merit Exam results released Thursday provided troubling news: The gap keeps widening.
“Results in Detroit Public Schools were grimmer. Just 205 students — or 6% of the 3,418 who took the math exam — passed. In science, 104 students — or 3% of the 3,477 students who took the exam, passed. Only 1.8% DPS students were deemed college ready. “

The State Board of Education and the Michigan Department of Education recently set closing the achievement gap — the difference in percentage of students passing the exam — as a key goal for the 2012-13 school year.

• Database: Find 2012 Michigan Merit Exam results for your district or school

The gaps, State Superintendent Mike Flanagan said in a statement, are “shameful.”

“We need to end this disparity in education, and we need to do this together as a state,” Flanagan said.

Overall, Thursday’s release of MME results was mixed. Average ACT scores are up. So is the percentage of students considered college-ready. But students struggled against a higher standard for passing the exams, with only about a quarter of them passing in math and science.

The achievement gap between white and black students widened in reading, math, science and writing on the MME, and narrowed in only social studies. The gap between white and Hispanic students widened in math and science, but narrowed in other subjects.

The gap also widened for both groups in the percentage of students considered college-ready.

Plymouth-Canton Community Schools leaders have worked for several years to address the achievement gap.

“We are very concerned about (the gaps),” said Jeanne Farina, assistant superintendent for instructional services. District and building equity teams are looking at the gaps, she said, “and digging deep into the data to find out where did they start to fail and what we can do about it.”
More Details: EXAM HIGHLIGHTS
• At nearly 80 schools statewide, none of the students was considered college-ready. That includes 11 charter schools, 31 alternative schools and 36 traditional, comprehensive high schools. Sixteen Detroit Public Schools had no college-ready students.
• Only six schools in the state had more than half their students considered college-ready.
If America doesn’t turn around (like repeal healthcare, shun statist socialism and get back to liberty, freedom and business) it’s future is here.Hmmmm......Now if he follows the 'example of his BFF Erdogan he could start 'Religious Imam Hatip schools' the level is 'easier'.In Turkey, only 27 percent of the adult population has a complete secondary school education, compared with 65 percent in the EU, 74 percent in Korea, 82 percent in Poland, and 87 percent in the US.Read the full story here. 

Over 50,000 scored zero on Turkey's university entrance exam.

Over 50,000 scored zero on Turkey's university entrance exam.(TZ).According to the result of this year's Transition to Higher Education Examination (YGS), 50,805 students scored zero points on the exam, answering all questions incorrectly. The Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) has stated that 1,895,476 students applied to take the YGS exam this year and that 57,742 did not show up on the examination date. Furthermore, the cities with the highest scores were listed as Burdur, Ankara and Karabük, with Van, Hakkari and Şırnak listing as the cities with the lowest scores. Results were announced by the Higher Education Board (YÖK) this morning and as well as this year's top-ranking student. Abdullah Coşkun from Konya province came in first among the close to 2 million students who took the test. Coşkun, who attends Büyükkoyuncu Science High School, answered all questions on this year's YGS correctly. Speaking to the Cihan news agency, Coşkun said he is thinking of studying medicine, adding that he has still not made up his mind about which university he wants to attend. “If I decide to stay in Konya, I would want to go the private Mevlana University,” he said.The quality of Turkey’s education compares poorly with OECD averages, according to a World Bank study.Read the full story here.