Istanbul’s Armenian community initiated construction of a new Armenian school to be built within a legal framework for the first time since 1923, World Bulletin said.
“After decades of legal hurdles, we began the construction a year ago. It takes time and money to complete it, but the fact that we were able to build it makes us happy,” Mesut Ozdemir, chair of the Surp Asdvazsazin Church Foundation tells Anadolu Agency on a tour of a construction site.
In Istanbul, there are 22 minority schools; five of them belong to the Greek minority while one is Jewish.
These schools are regulated by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, the founding document of the Turkish Republic. According to that treaty, Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities have a right to open their own schools. The state should allocate money for those schools and although the curriculum is determined by the state, the schools can offer education in Turkish and their own languages.
Over 3,000 students currently attend Istanbul’s 16 Armenian schools. The Bakirkoy neighborhood on Istanbul’s European side houses one small school that was constructed 170 years ago by an Ottoman official, Hovahannes Dadyan.
Across the decades, the Armenians of Bakirkoy depended on that one school but, as their numbers increased, capacity became a problem. Now the school has to accommodate 400 children — more than enough for the old building.
The major change happened in 2008 when the law about foundations was revised. The changes allowed minorities to acquire and renovate properties. The Turkish government also began returning minority properties that had previously been confiscated.
Minorities and experts agree that the government can do more to improve status of minority schools. For example, Kaya says the government can stop selecting the head deputy teacher for minority schools.
Another problem for those schools is that the ministry has a final say over who can attend. Although non-citizen minorities can attend schools under a guest program, people raised as Muslim Turks but who have Armenian or Jewish heritage cannot attend minority schools.
Minority schools still face financial problems although the state has a duty to allocate money to these institutions.
“We collect donations in our community to pay the salaries. But our financial circumstance remains challenging. Some Armenian families send their children but they are unable to pay tuition and rely on financial help,” Ozdemir said. He hopes the government’s returning of Armenian properties may help to fill the financial hole in the foundation’s budget.
Despite the problems Ozdemir is hopeful for a better future, insisting on equal citizenship rather than positive discrimination for the Armenian community. “We were born and raised here. We will die here. We want the same rights as Turkish people, nothing more,” he says.
Markar Esayan, columnist for the Yeni Safak daily, says that rights should not be perceived as “tolerance” of minorities. “They should be perceived as a natural part of the whole,” Esayan states.
After a brief tour at the school, Ozdemir steps outside and examines the building’s exterior. He hopes to see students in its classroom in the coming academic year. “The old one has served for 170 years. I hope this new one will also serve for another 170 years,” he says.
