Chancellor Angela Merkel’s pledge to support the establishment of Turkish-language universities is being hailed in Turkey
as a hard-won concession, but it may not exactly be the news that Germany’s nearly 3 million Turks are looking forward to hearing.
Merkel, who earlier rejected a call from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to open Turkish-language high schools -- reciprocating the existence of several German-speaking schools and a planned Turkish-German university in Turkey -- told a joint press conference in Ankara that “Turkey also can have schools in Germany,” since Germany has schools in Turkey. She warned, however, that this must not be an excuse for not learning German.
Erdoğan’s proposal annoyed German authorities, who claimed it would be detrimental to efforts to integrate millions of immigrants of Turkish origin into German society.
But despite the diplomatic ruckus it has created, the debate on Turkish-language high schools is largely unknown to Germany’s Turkish immigrant community, a large portion of which find it hard to receive a decent education and find jobs because of their low German skills.
Critics also said the debate is irrelevant, since there are no legal obstacles in Germany for the establishment of private foreign schools. Merkel’s pledges in Ankara are also likely to have a minimal effect in Germany, where education policies are mainly administered by federal states, not the central government.
Still, the idea of Turkish-language high schools, similar to the prestigious private German-language high schools of Turkey’s larger cities, is appealing.
“Turkish high schools would be good. But these schools cannot be a solution to resolve the problem of education,” said Bahattin Kaya, vice chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD). He also underlined that these schools cannot be an alternative education system to the German schools, dismissing German conservatives’ claims that this is what Erdoğan meant. “Erdoğan’s remarks have been distorted to a certain extent for political effect,” he told Today’s Zaman.
Conservative politicians accuse the Erdoğan government of trying to use Germany’s Turkish community to advance its political goals and view any remark by Turkish officials about their problems as an attempt to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs. Kaya said the best way to avoid debates such as this is to make sure official statements are made after consultations with experts and in clear language that would leave no room for any misrepresentation or possible distortion.
According to Kaya, the Turkish community does not demand Turkish schools in place of German schools, either, as they are aware that a good command of German is essential for their social and educational advancement. Germany is home to 2.7 million people of Turkish origin. While many are fully integrated, others speak German poorly and tend to stay within the large Turkish-speaking communities.
Erdoğan’s proposal appears to stem from a conviction that the Turks in Germany will find it hard to learn German unless they speak their first language, Turkish, properly. “Germany has not yet caught up with the times,” Erdoğan said in an interview with Die Zeit weekly last week. “One must first have a firm command of one’s own language, that is to say, Turkish, and that is unfortunately rarely the case.”
But the TGD says this argument should be revised, as it is more applicable to those learning a second language from scratch, not for Turkish children born and raised in Germany.
The argument also seems to relate to the problems that some 500,000 Turkish students in Germany are facing. Many German-Turkish families complain that their children do not receive the education they deserve because of the unique way the German education system works. They blame the complex German education system, which classifies schoolchildren on the basis of achievement at the age of 10. Many children coming from immigrant families, who start school with minimal or no German skills, fail to get high grades on the test because they find it hard to learn German and catch up with the school curriculum at the same time. Thus, higher-achieving students who are more familiar with the German language are put in the university track, while others effectively lose their chance to ever receive a university education and find a decent job.
Main problems ignored?
As Merkel wrapped up her two-day visit, her talks seem to have done little to address the key complaints of the Turkish community in Germany, such as their calls for dual nationality. Only one-third of the Turks living in Germany have German citizenship, while the rest are still citizens of Turkey. Germany’s strict codes do not allow dual citizenship, leaving many Turks with the difficult question of choosing between Turkish and German nationalities.
Turks who do not have German nationality are not entitled to vote in elections, national or local. Kaya said it is disappointing that Germany grants citizens of European Union countries the right to vote in local elections even after a very short period of residence while refusing to give the same right to Turks living in Germany for decades.
He also lamented that there was no sign that Erdoğan and Merkel discussed preparations for next year’s general elections in Turkey, where Turks in Germany, along with other countries, will be allowed for the first time to vote without having to travel to Turkey.
On another key issue, namely Turks’ demands for visa-free travel to Germany, government sources said Erdoğan and Merkel had discussed the issue during a dinner on Monday night. Merkel was non-committal, telling Erdoğan that the two countries could work together to find a mutually beneficial solution.