ABTTF: "Children of the Turkish community face discrimination in equal access to education"
The event, organized in Brussels by the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol’s Brussels Office in collaboration with the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), took place on October 3. Representing ABTTF at the event was Deniz Servantie from their Brussels office.
Under the theme of "Teaching Regional and Minority Languages in Early Childhood," the day-long event featured two thematic panel sessions. These sessions discussed the impact of artificial intelligence in education, the resources and structures needed to preserve regional or minority languages within the education system, and future projects and recommendations.
Among the speakers were Daniel Alfreider, Vice President of the Autonomous Province of Bozen/Bolzano-South Tyrol and FUEN Vice President; Anna Sole Mena, Senior Expert at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport, and Culture; and Vicent Fenollar i Sastre, Office Manager at the Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity (NPLD).
During a session focusing on language acquisition for children from diverse cultural backgrounds, ABTTF delivered a presentation on the challenges faced by children from the Turkish community living in Western Thrace, Greece. ABTTF highlighted that the autonomous status of Turkish minority schools has been significantly weakened by various legal regulations and ministerial decisions. As a result, Turkish schools are now managed under the supervision and control of the Greek state.
ABTTF emphasized that children from the Turkish community in Western Thrace face discrimination in equal access to education, particularly in three key areas. These include the absence of bilingual kindergartens that offer education in both Turkish and Greek, the systematic closure of Turkish primary schools every year, and the lack of sufficient student capacity at the two Turkish middle and high schools, which are unable to meet the current demand.
Additionally, ABTTF noted that Greece has not ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) or the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECMRL). ABTTF called on Greece to restore the educational autonomy of the Turkish community in Western Thrace.
