Come on Children Mosque Project marks the end of secular Turkey

The Education Ministry wants the ‘Come on Children Mosque Project’’ added as an extra-curricular activity.

Ankara (AsiaNews) – Turkey’s Education Ministry has issued a directive requiring all schools to implement the ‘Come on Children Mosque Project’ as broadly as possible as an extracurricular activity.

Since 2002, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party took power, a major push has been underway to Islamise all aspects of Turkey’s society, this in a state originally founded on a secularist vision.

Mr Erdoğan has often said that he wants to build a “pious generation” capable of changing the nation.

For Feray Aytekin Aydoğan, director general of the Education and Science Workers' Union (Eğitim-Sen), support for the ‘Come on Children Mosque Project’ means slowly gutting the country’s secular education system, placing schools under the ideological and political control of the government.

According to Aydoğan, the Education Ministry and the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) are the backbone of this policy.

Photo: Reuters

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• education ministry
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