MİLLET MEKTEPLERİNİN AÇILMASI VE DİYARBAKIR’DAKİ FAALİYETLERİ
THE OPENING OF THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR ACTIVITIES IN DIYARBAKIR

Summary/Abstract: The education policies of the single-party period in the Republic of Türkiye were determined by the Kemalist ideology and the modernisation project that formed its axis. The educational services provided in this period aimed to realise social development on the one hand, and the adoption of a Kemalist and nationalist ideology by new generations on the other. For this reason, Kemalist political elites attached great importance to education since the foundation. As a requirement of this importance, schools were built all over the country and great efforts were made to enrol school-age children. In addition to the importance attached to schooling in the Early Republican period, it was also aimed to increase the literacy rate. In line with this aim, educational institutions such as Turkish Hearths, People’s Classrooms, National Schools, Evening Schools, Village Reading Rooms, Public Houses and Public Rooms were opened. These institutions played a major role especially in providing literacy and civic education to adults and raising an educated population. In 1928, with the adoption of the Latin Alphabet, there was a need for an organisation to teach the new letters to the public. Based on this need, National Schools (Millet Mektepleri) were established with the aim of both teaching new letters to the public and teaching illiterate people to read and write. This study focuses on the opening aims and activities of the National Schools in Diyarbakır, which operated in both cities and villages as Classrooms A and B between 1929 and 1950 and undertook the mission of making citizens between the ages of 16-45 literate. The main sources of the study are Maarif/Education Statistics, National Schools Activity Statistics and Primary Education Statistics, as well as archival documents and newspapers of the period. The study, which is based on content and document analysis, reveals that National Schools played an important role in increasing the literate population in Diyarbakır and raising ‘acceptable citizens’, albeit relatively.

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