İsmail Hakkı Tonguç`s thoughtS on Turkish education

Village institutes have a very important place in the education history of our country.Mustafa Kemal and Ismet Inönü?s world visions have been determining in the realizationof this concept of education. If they had held other opinions, we would not be speaking ofthis matter today. In the 1930?s 80% of the country?s population was residing in villagesand earning their bread through cattle breeding. Furthermore, the places of settlement werescattered and the population of most of these places was less than 400 people. A vastmajority of the public was lacking even primary education. Besides this, teachers wereinsufficient in both qualifications and numbers. The production of our country was basedon agriculture and there were no educated people to increase this production.Ismail Hakkı Tonguç, was raising a new breed of teachers to suit village conditions atthe institutes he founded with his ideas and activities to change these negative conditions.The new breed of village teachers were graduating as people with knowledge inagriculture, with superior general knowledge and career levels, and beneficial to the villagein every aspect. While getting ready to raise teachers with such skills and other workcomponents necessary for the village besides these, the health and economic conditions,the conditions of the nature they are in, its public, the jobs they are engaged in, and thetechniques they used to do perform these tasks were all taken into consideration.In this regard, liberty and creativity were given a chance at his institutes. Studentsand teachers working side-by-side, hand-in-hand, having a good time in a genial disciplinehad brought a new dimension, a democratic way of life to our education. It was theformation of an education environment in which students shared the authorities andresponsibilities, participated actively in the management, where there was room for thefreedom of activity and criticism and self-criticism with disregard to age.The education given at his institutes was a secular education free of carelessness andstructured according to the conditions of the day and age. A business education orientedconcept was being brought in which students were more active, which brought out theircreativity, and in which agriculture and technical lessons were taught. With this concept ofeducation, children were being raised prepared for the social, political and economicconditions of the future. Furthermore, students having a career meant the increase ofproduction, and as a result of this, the public taking its active place in the community bothpolitically and socially.Key Words: İ. HakkıTonguç?s thoughts on education