The Human Rights Organization in Afrin: We discussed more than once the issue of education in the Afrin region after the invasion of Turkish occupation forces accompanied by the armed militias loyal to them, and the transformation of more than 45 schools into military headquarters (12 of them in Afrin city) and detention centers in which they practice all forms of physical and psychological torture, and the closure of nearly 25 schools as a result of the total destruction following the Turkish bombing and partial damage to most schools as a result of the stationed of the Popular Protection Forces (YPG) in them, with the exception of schools that were closed in remote villages for lack of educational and administrative staff, not to mention changing the names of some schools following the Turkish policy- First aid – fuel “and overcrowding of classrooms for students. Despite this, the Turkish forces has deliberately tightened its complete control over the education sector and imposed educational curricula, whose content is Turkish culture and media, as well as imposing its Ottoman symbols and flags in the areas under their control.
The educational and pedagogical reality in Afrin region
Despite the lack of educational cadres, especially those with university degrees, the Turkish occupation authorities have dismissed nearly 80 teachers from the indigenous Kurdish population during the year 2019, neglecting the Kurdish language (the language of the indigenous population) under false pretenses and arguments, and appointing new teachers from the settlers instead of them, most of them do not possess academic qualifications and their academic degrees are forged. Rather, they carry radical ideological religious ideas and racist chauvinist attitudes that are compatible with their aggressive policies towards the Kurds, which at the same time express the opinion and positions of most members of the Syrian National Coalition, especially the Muslim Brotherhood. In addition to submitting the process of teaching the Kurdish language to a questionnaire to the students’ parents about their desire to teach the Kurdish language to their children or not, especially after resettling the forcibly displaced persons from other regions in order to approve it compared to the Turkish language that was imposed without objection by the Syrian Interim Government.
The weekly timetable
Through an overview of the weekly timetable for students starting from elementary school to high school in Afrin schools, we find that the teaching subjects are “Arabic language 7 classes – Mathematics 5 classes – Science 2 class – English language 2 class – Kurdish language 1, 2 lessons – Turkish language 3 classes – Islamic religion 6 – 7 classes Physics 3 classes – Philosophy 3 classes – Sociology 5 classes – Chemistry 3 classes “This has been canceled teaching the Kurdish language in the third secondary school, in preparation for its abolition slowly at all educational levels, as well as cancellation of the final general exams in the third preparatory and third secondary classes. Rather, we find that the English and Turkish languages are included in all classes as being the primary language.
From this standpoint, we call on the international human rights bodies “UNICEF” to put pressure on the Ministry of Education in the Syrian Interim Government and the Syrian National Coalition to include the Kurdish language in the two grades (preparatory and secondary) as the indigenous language, similar to the Arabic and Turkish language and mentioned it, which is as one of the basic items in general certificates, and also in compliance with previous human rights and political agreements that they undertook with partners from the Kurdish parties affiliated with the name of the Syrian National Coalition.
It is worth mentioning that during the presence of French forces in Syria, they imposed learning the French language, but they did not cancel the Arabic language, but rather kept studying in the original language and tried to erase the effects left by the Ottoman Empire and the censorship imposed on everyone who speaks Arabic in schools.
10/04/2021