Press Centre 2006/07/13 (3): Child Protection
Turkish schools make friends with their pupils
Students at Fevzi Geyik Primary School.
Photograph by Sema Hosta © UNICEF Turkey 2006
This is a good school. It’s better than the others,
one young teenager confided in me as we crossed the yard, surrounded by bright childish murals of balloons, animals and flowers. The sun shone on the carefully tended, prize-winning garden which the pupils designed and planted in line with their own taste. Inside the entrance hall, a panel entitled Us in the press
proved that I was by no means the first member of the press to have taken an interest in the Fevzi Geyik Primary School, one of 13 schools in the Eastern province of Van which are aiming to be recognised as ‘Child-friendly Schools’. More revelations awaited me in the teachers’ room.
I used to think I was a good teacher,
said a senior female member of the staff, referring to the years she spent in the profession before she received training in the child-friendly concept, I thought I was good at imparting knowledge.
We were civil servants; we learned to be teachers,
confessed a young male colleague.
I came in the morning and followed my programme and came home at night. There are 49 in my class, Now I realise I only really knew the nine of them at the front who are good at mathematics. It turns out that some of those at the back are really good at drama.
Training sessions
The Child-friendly Schools initiative aims to ensure that schools are attractive places where they can enjoy their learning in a pleasant environment free from violence. It regards education as a right, aiming to ensure the development of each and every child’s faculties of critical thinking, self-esteem and social skills. A child-friendly school acts in the interests of the whole
child, which includes his or her health, nutrition and overall well-being. It also helps to monitor the rights and well-being of all children in the community before, during and after their years in school.
In Turkey, a child-friendly schools policy was adopted in 2003, and in early 2004 the Fevzi Geyik School put its name forward to the Ministry of National Education to be one of the first. Staff then took part in intensive training sessions supported by UNICEF. The school has over 3,000 students and around 80 teachers. Located in the Karşıyaka neighbourhood of Van city - an area populated mainly by poor migrant families from surrounding mountainous rural districts - it has been acting as coordinator school for the child-friendly school project in the province.
Reaching the community
It is not just the teaching that has changed. Children have been given a bigger role in class decision-making and more opportunities to state their views, whether through the complaints box, at morning and afternoon assemblies or simply by walking into the office of the headteacher, Mr Fırat Şad. In line with the child friendly school philosophy, efforts have been made to draw in parents and the community. A magazine and bulletins have been published, and seminars have been held for parents, at which the novel idea of a parent-school-child contract has been promoted. As a result, teachers say, attendance at parent-teacher meetings has risen from 40 to 500. In the past, whenever we had a meeting, the parents wouldn’t come, because they assumed we were going to ask for money,
says Şad, Now they call it
.
our school
and as a result, there is no security problem round here either
Other activities range from the management of the school web site to literacy courses for mothers, which are held in conjunction with the Mother and Child Foundation (ACEV), a leading NGO. Gender disparities in the region are high, and the school is heavily involved in the campaign to ensure that all girls receive an eight-year primary school education. High staff turnover results in a constant need to train new arrivals in the child-friendly spirit.
Looking ahead
Turkey has a total of 326 child-friendly schools, and the Ministry aims to extend the scheme to every primary school in the country. Criteria for assessing and monitoring the schools were hammered out most recently at a national workshop in the Mediterranean port city of Mersin in June. We are proud to have something that we can show off the world,
says Professor Yüksel Özden, Director General of Primary Education at the Ministry, as he looks forward to the day when all Turkey’s schools will have achieved the child-friendly standards.
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OTHER PRESS RELEASES ON CHILD PROTECTION ISSUES
- The Government of Turkey hosts a conference on Child Poverty with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on 12-13 June 2006.
- Turkey’s Ministry of National Education and UNICEF launch drive to eradicate violence from school.
- An EU-financed project “Towards Good Governance, Protection and Justice for Children in Turkey” or Children First was launched on 20th January 2006 at the Hilton Hotel, Ankara.
- More than 225 participants including representatives from five different ministries, parliamentarians, governors, mayors, NGOs, academicians, the media and children met to reaffirm their commitment to protecting the rights of street children during a conference between on the 16th and 17th of June at the Princess Hotel.
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