EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
The alleged idea of making the Turkish (or mother tongue) language “mandatory” in public schools has received a lot of attention in recent days. A line from a pre-election rally of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms was used by the two antagonistic-allied parties (Ataka and MRF) for another series of manipulations of the sensitive electoral groups that supported them in the parliamentary race. As often happens in such scenarios, this story is a mixture of naivety, lack of information and political cronies.
If we have to start with the topic itself, what has come out in the public domain is not quite enough to reveal the full picture - there are intertwined vague political statements, a network of laws and regulations, as well as "unspoken" practices in the Ministry of Education, all of which influence the process of learning the mother tongue in public schools.
One possible version of the situation is the following – the study of the mother tongue is now a mandatory elective subject (ZIP). That is, there is an opportunity for a class of about ten children to work with them to improve their knowledge of the mother tongue (as well as other additional subjects) in every school – such groups already exist for teaching Hebrew, Armenian and Turkish. The problem is the lack of certain state educational standards and plans, which legally prevent the publication of a new textbook in the Turkish language. Another involved topic is the teaching of general education subjects in the mother tongue, which is currently difficult to regulate from a regulatory point of view.
In a detailed study of the problem, it becomes clear that the gaps found are mainly in the “regulation” of the teaching process – according to the authors, there is an incorrect equating of the mother tongue with “less important” disciplines, there is no state educational standard, there are also concerns about some minor details of the methodological manual. Viewed from the side, the report may leave the impression that the discrepancy comes more from the poorly functioning system of educational regulation than from any specific problem of the legal framework. That is, the problem is with the existence of “standards” imposed from above, not with their quality.
And this is actually not something new, the experience in Bulgarian education has shown that in our latitudes, ways have long been found to at least partially blur the boundaries of official standards, and for the better. If we start with a personal example - my class studied half of its subjects in Russian in the early years of my education, after a verbal agreement between teachers and parents. Let's move on to the administrative balancing acts that mathematical and other specialized high schools do to provide more time for studying mathematics, drawing, etc. Coming to the practice of private lessons - a conscious decision of parents and students that a foreign language (for example) will not be taught at school, and accordingly an alternative is needed - far from the regulatory framework of the Ministry of Education.
Ultimately, in this case, the regulation is the less important issue. Like many other problems of the education system, this one is the result of politicians and officials being able to decide what, how and where to learn. Every individual has the absolute moral right to read, write and speak in whatever language he or she sees fit – without any DOS[1] interfering. You will rarely find anyone who would object to the idea that a child can learn his or her mother tongue if he or she is Jewish, Russian or American – the special treatment is given to those of Turkish origin.
The existing distrust and tension is only fueled by two cliques in political symbiosis, feeding on fear and discrimination. Some scare with the Turks as enslavers, the others with the Bulgarians as revivors. Now they have found another field for expression – school and language. A new opportunity to tell certain people what they can or cannot do.
