So bayram, as they call the holidays here, is over. Three days of eating, kissing hands and visits to family and friends, people seem to love it but I’m happy I’m not really part of it. The children are rather generous with kissing the hands of their parents, aunts and uncles, adult brothers and sisters, and, well, everybody who has …
No change in the law was needed for quite a big change that was made in Turkey’s education system: the YÖK (Higher Education Board) decided that graduates from normal high schools and vocational high schools have the same chance of entering a university based on their scores in the ÖSS (on which I wrote a blog recently). Previously, …
This week the newspapers are full of young guys, and now and then a young girl, with their hands up in the sky: they got good results in their ÖSS. That’s an exam at the end of the school year, which determines whether you are smart enough for university and, if so, for which university. The guys with their hands …
In the morning, she prepares breakfast for the family. Then she takes the young children to school. After that she cleans up the breakfast table, starts cleaning the house and when that’s finished, she knits for a while, till it’s time to start making dinner. Just a small glimpse into the life of a so called ‘ev kizi’, a house …
Picture this: A school in Kayseri, a vibrant city in the heart of Turkey. Not a big school, only 450 students. Girls only, aged between let’s say 13 and 17. And then picture me coming in with Allard, a Dutch photographer I sometimes work with. At first the girls are shy; when we try to get the ones I interview …
Doctors warn against ‘relax pills for students’, as they might do more harm than good. Newspapers have been publishing sample exams for weeks. Private schools drill their students for the last time. What’s going on? Tomorrow the university entrance exams take place. About one and a half million students compete for one of the approximately 200 thousand places at universities …
Some time ago, I interviewed a political scientist. The interview was not about the government, but of course we had to discuss the policies of the ruling AK Party, which is accused of trying to Islamize Turkey and undermine secularism. He said people had no reason to be afraid of any Islamic agenda in the AKP. In fact, …
The Turkish economy is growing by about 6 percent a year. You could call that positive, but for many Turks it’s hard to see it that way. The official growth doesn’t result in a higher national income or less unemployment. Some Turks still dream of going abroad to increase their standard of living, but more and more young people have no …
I had an interview with Sibil, a young Armenian Turk. She’s in ‘Hadig’, a group of young Armenian people who want to carry on Hrant Dink’s legacy. Hrant Dink, the Turkish Armenian journalist and founder of bilingual newspaper Agos, was murdered almost a year ago. One of Dink’s missions was to make the Armenian community in Turkey more visible. After …
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