Student Oath: Gone but not Forgotten

Reha Ruhavioglu, 2 February 2018 The practice of reciting Student Oath was abolished in 2013, however it still exist in textbooks.  Initiative for Haq Diyarbakır reminded their campaign called “Repeal the Student Oath” and called for the removal of the oath from textbooks. Student oath had been recited in schools at the beginning of every […]

Reha Ruhavioglu, 2 February 2018

The practice of reciting Student Oath was abolished in 2013, however it still exist in textbooks.  Initiative for Haq Diyarbakır reminded their campaign called “Repeal the Student Oath” and called for the removal of the oath from textbooks.

Student oath had been recited in schools at the beginning of every school dayuntil 2013, it was then repealed within the frame of a “democratization package”.

Initiative for Haq Diyarbakır brought the issue forward before the second term starts. In their statement, they called for the government to remove the oath from textbooks and underlined the ideological and standardizing aspects of it.

A part from their statement: “Turkey is a multicultural country containing more than 30 ethnical identities along with Turkish. There are expressions in the oath such as ‘I am a Turk”, ‘my existence shall be dedicated to the Turkish existence’,‘O Great Atatürk!  On the path that you have paved, I swear to walk incessantly toward the aims that you have set.’,‘how happy is the one who says I am a Turk!’ All these harm the multicultural structure of Turkish Republic and paves the way for standardization of the society. We call for the government to be consistent and take steps to remove the oath from textbooks.”