Ä°mam Hatip school

Imam Hatip schools ( Turkish Imam hatip lisesi ) are public vocational schools for training as imam ( prayer leader ) and preachers in Turkey. The degree entitles after the university entrance exam OLS also to study at a university.

Organization and content of teaching

Between 1997 and 2012 there were simple Imam Hatip high schools and so-called Anadolu Imam Hatip high schools. With the school year 2012/2013 there Imam Hatip schools again for the Intermediate ( tr: orta okul ). The schools are coeducational and today offer in addition to the curriculum of other schools also Arabic and Quran and Islamic knowledge and an additional year of schooling. In the school year 2005/2006 the number of students was 43 726. Approximately 7 percent of high school graduates were graduates of Imam Hatip high schools.

With the Law 6287 of 30 March 2012 ( published in the Official Journal on 10 April 2012), compulsory education was raised to 12 years. After 694 schools middle school in Imam Hatip were transformed schools. At these schools, approximately 100,000 students enrolled. In Istanbul alone, approximately 20,000 students enrolled at a 85 Imam Hatip schools. This visit 9% of all students an Imam Hatip middle school. In Konya there since the school year 2012/1013 49 Imam Hatip middle schools and 26 high schools Imam Hatip.

For these schools, a weekly teaching workload of 36 hours applies ( in other middle schools are there 28 hours in the 5 and 6 and 29 hours in the 7th and 8th grade ). Among the mandatory subjects include: Turkish, mathematics, science, social sciences, history of circulation in the Republic of Turkey and Kemalism, foreign language, religion, culture and ethics. The subjects Quran, life of the Prophet Mohammed and basic knowledge about religion that are electives at other schools belong to the Imam Hatip schools it may be compulsory. The subjects Koran and the Prophet's life (including basic knowledge of religion) are weekly two hours taught Arabic is taught in grades 5 and 6, four hours, and in grades 7 and 8 for three hours.

History

The Law for the Unification of teaching already saw in the 1920s, the creation of a " special school" for religion civil servants. These schools were called Imam Hatip Mektepleri, but 1929/1930 due to lack of demand and government support closed. As of 1949, male graduates of middle school could be trained in ten months Imam Hatip courses for prayer leaders and preachers. In 1951, new statutory conditions have been created and founded the first Imam Hatip high schools whose student enrollment has since increased rapidly under the government of Adnan Menderes. The highest level of student numbers was reached in 1997. At that time, more than 511,000 students were registered. In the " post-modern coup " of the Turkish military on 28 February 1997, the National Security Council demanded reforms by the government Erbakan Çiller. In terms of reducing the number of pupils of the Imam Hatip schools was required to extend compulsory education from five to eight years. Thus, the intermediate ( " Orta okul " ) should be abolished, which allowed the students after the fifth grade, to go on a Imam Hatip school or other vocational school. Erbakan's government refused to carry out these reforms and entered under a variety of pressure from the military back in June 1997. The successor government led by the required education reforms. Since Imam Hatip schools can be visited until the ninth grade. As a result, the number of pupils of the Imam Hatip schools declined rapidly. Public discussions about the equality of the Imam Hatip high schools with other schools in 2004 were an expression of distrust, which one brings to this type of school. Critics see them as Islamic elite.

Debate on school reform in 2012

At the core of the reform of March 2012 was the rehabilitation of the middle school and the associated appreciation of the Imam Hatip schools. With it, the measures of educational reform in 1997 should be reversed. So said Yunus Memiş of the conservative teachers' union Eğitim Bir - Sen: "The reform eliminates the effects of 1997. " " Authoritarian leadership ", " religious indoctrination ", " devalued Parliament," it said in the chorus of critics after the adoption of the controversial education reform.

What Erdogan sees as overdue correction of an unjust exclusion of religious circles, can grow at his critics fears of Islamisation. Opposition parties as well as the pedagogical faculties of the major private universities or teachers' unions were upset that the reform is hardly preceded by a public or parliamentary debate, but the AKP reform, which was not mentioned in the election manifesto of 2011, drafted unilaterally and adopted in a rush has. Kasim Birtek of the teachers' union Eğitim -Sen said: "The state should behave objectively in religious matters and leave the people themselves, as they continue their education religious. "