The village education in Ataturk's period

After the Republic of Turkey had been established, reorganization of theeducation system became one of the first privileged subjects of the politicalauthority. The fact that the number of literate people in general population wasvery low, and that you could hardly find literate people in 40.000 villages, forcedthe state authority to find out new solutions. In order to selve the problem ofvillage education Mustafa Kemal Atatürk proposed to the Ministry of CultureSaffet Arıkan, to train ?village educators?. To train village educators those whocompleted their military service as sergeants were made to attend the teachertraining courses. The first educator training course started on Çifteler Farm inEskişehir 1936. In the courses were taught general knowledge subjects as wellas lessons about village life.Thanks to village educators, with their hard work villages teachersrequirements were met in a short time and they were all succesful. Theirachievement led to the foundation of the Village Institues.