Turkey's minority schools get their books
Vercihan Ziflioğlu ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News
The books have to be approved by the Foreign Ministry. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL
Students at Istanbul’s Greek minority schools have finally received their course books after the Education Ministry’s Board of Education and Discipline approved the texts, following an article that appeared in the Hürriyet Daily News on Oct. 4.
The Greek language and math course books sent from Greece in May were not handed over to the schools, as the Turkish Foreign and Education ministries had failed to approve them.
The students had been studying from photocopies for years, as the last books arrived from Greece as far back as 1990, the Daily News reported on Oct. 4.
According to the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, the Turkish minority in Western Thrace in Greece receive their class books from Turkey, while the Greek minority in Istanbul receives their books from Greece.
The books have to be inspected and approved by the Foreign Ministries of both countries. Until the 2000s, as with many other subjects, quarrels broke out between Greece and Turkey over the issue of classroom books.
