Educational transformations in the process of transition from the Ottoman period to the republic
Authors: Akyüz Yahya 
Published: May 2017

It is important to study and find out the transformations in education during the transition from the last periods of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. Education was not only contributing to the still lifestyle of the Ottoman society until the end of the 18th century, but it was also affected by that lifestyle. The most common educational institutes of the period were elementary schools and madrassas. In Ottomans, the function of education as a transformer of the society was preceded by the education itself being transformed. In this process, the military and political events had been influential. To this end, starting with 1776, first the military schools were started to be opened. Until the period which commenced with the proclamation of the Tanzimat in 1839, the view in the Ottoman society toward the child, youngster and their education had a feature of being religious and traditional. For example, in Sultan Mahmut the Second's edict which made elementary education mandatory, the reason to make elementary education mandatory was cited as children's need to first learn their religion. In the Tanzimat (Reformation) period which started in 1839, the views that see the families' and the state's educational duties as only religious and traditional started to weaken, and these duties were started to be considered from the aspect of their responsibility toward children and the society. This development was rooted on several statesmen's, authors' and educationists' self-criticism and recognition of societies' lack of knowledge and having stayed backward, and seeing this traditional view of education as a primary reason for the state's decline. From the political aspect, in this period, the ideal of being "Ottoman" was attempted to be infused in children and youngsters of the day. This was to be achieved in schools. Namık Kemal's following thoughts in this topic are of utmost importance: "If children from various races and ethnicities are educated together in schools, in time, the desired fusion of peoples in the nation can be achieved. This may be resembled to the impossibility of separating out trees whose saplings have grown together embracing each other..." A very important transformation toward children and teenagers in the pre-republic period was seen in the second Mesrutiyet period which started in 1908. The central aspect of this transformation, which was especially caused by defeat in the Balkan Wars in 1912-1913, was: The defeat of the Ottomans against smaller Balkan countries was attributed to the prevalent ignorance in the Ottoman society and the high value placed at being civil servants for the state. According to the intellectuals who violently criticized the society as well as themselves, education should stop pursuing the goal of developing civil servants; it should instead focus on science, art, technology, trade ... and produce specialists and entrepreneurs who can be successful in these areas. However, as a result of wars and social tragedies in this period new regulations in education could not be realized. Despite this, the second Mesrutiyet period, due to various ideological discussions and arguments became a laboratory for the Republic era. Since the Ottomans, some state administrators have been very influential in transformations in education as well as transformations in society through education. The foremost of these is Atatürk. Having spent his entire educational life in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, he keenly observed the educational roots of the collapse of the Ottoman state. Atatürk attributed this collapse primarily to the education system which trained non-nationalistic, passive individuals, and that which did not aim to develop knowledge and behaviors necessary for life. He desired the Republic to have a completely different system of education and he gave the responsibility of upbringing virtuous, hardworking, active, nationalistic generations to the teachers. He wanted education to be national as well as scientific. With the Unification of Education Law in 1924, revolution of the alphabet in 1928, and revolutions of mixed education and women's rights in those years, very significant transformations transpired in both educational and social life. Atatürk also set a goal for all of us to advance our nation to a level above the western civilization.