A study on the Turkish intellectual`s viewpoint to the concept of education in the modernization period

After a series of reversals in its wars with European powers during the 18th century,the Ottoman Empire was forced to reevaluate its military technology and training. Therealization that the West had outstripped the Muslim East in scientific and technologicaladvancements had led to Ottoman reformers to introduced changes to the traditionaleducational system, especially to the curriculum.However, what the reformers soon realized was that the military superiority of Europewas only a symptom, and not the cause of, the West?s advancement; this led to theintroduction of more Western-style institutions in an effort to achieve its military goals. It wasthrough these new institutions that Western ideas of equality, rationalism and liberalism wereintroduced into the Ottoman Empire.This study, which deals with the modernization of Ottoman public education duringthe period of reform, is based on array of sources, such as archival sources from the PrimeMinister?s Ottoman archive in Istanbul, published documents, textbooks, and memoirs. Itdiscusses the main factors that caused to Ottoman educational reforms.In this thesis the topics include the expansion of provincial education, financialpolicies, curricular issues and the educational ideology of the Ottoman State during TanzimatPeriod (1839-1876).The first part of this study examines the various ways of how the westernizationmovement was perceived and practised in the country and describes the ideological bases ofthe movement.The second part of this study is to analysis of the viewpoint of the Ottoman intellectualin the Tanzimat Period and secular educational reform in the Ottoman Empire during theModernization Period.The third part of this thesis is to focused on the notion of Westernized Education andis to assessment how influenced the movement of westernization during the educationalreforms of Tanzimat Era.In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire has begun to make many reforms in severalfields, as well as in the field of education. As a result of this attempt, the Ministry of PublicEducation (Maârif-i Umûmiyye Nezâreti) has been founded in 1857 and it was organizedmany laws.The Ministry of Public Education, taking into consideration the conditions of thattime, in solving the problems about education, was sometimes successful, sometimes not.Besides, the historical process of the Ministry of Public Education was almost similar to theministries in the West.Milestones in Ottoman educational reform were the Ministry of Public Education 1857and the Regulation of Public Education (Maârif-i Umûmiyye Nizâmnâmesi) 1869, both withthe intention of establishing a rationalized and centralized school system throughout theEmpire.During the early Tanzimat period, the traditional system of Qur?an schools remainedlargely untouched and was complemented by the parallel structure of the elite state schools inIstanbul. Tanzimat bureaucrats before the 1870s still understood primary education as anatural part of the religious realm.The Ottoman political elite and bureaucracy understood very well its precarioussituation in which it had to fend off simultaneously military, diplomatic, economic,ideological, and cultural challenges. They were established schools as political tools forbuilding loyalty to the state or to prevent the development of local nationalism or separatism.The aim of the Ottoman educational reforms was to raise a class of educatedbureaucrats as a means of administrative centralization, and a design to inculcate authoritarianand religious values among the population for the legitimization of state authority.After 1856 the intention was that ?the primary level should preserve the culture of thereligious community, the secondary level should provide the socialization of non-Muslimsinto the Ottoman imperial culture?. The `Ottomanist? vision of educating Muslims and non-Muslims in common state institutions, however, was realized only in the Mekteb-i Sultânû inIstanbul (today?s Galatasaray Lisesi) and at the professional higher schools.