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ISTANBUL: `Guest student' status does not respond to needs of Armeni

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  • ISTANBUL: `Guest student' status does not respond to needs of Armeni

    Sunday's Zaman, Turkey
    Oct 8 2011


    `Guest student' status does not respond to needs of Armenian migrants' children

    09 October 2011, Sunday / YONCA POYRAZ DOÄ?AN, Ä°STANBUL

    It has been a few weeks since the new school year started but there is
    still construction going on in this extraordinary school, where
    students are excited about their new desks and chairs even though the
    pupils are even more crammed than before because of the size of their
    new seats and desks, which are far too big for their small classrooms.

    The place is the GedikpaÅ?a Armenian Protestant Church, which opened
    its doors this school year to 84 students whose parents are
    undocumented immigrants in Turkey from Armenia. The classes are held
    in the basement of the church, and some of the makeshift classrooms
    have no doors. The classrooms used to be divided by curtains before
    board separators were recently installed.

    `Thanks to donors from the Armenian community in Ä°stanbul, we have
    some more appropriate materials for the children,' Rev. Kirkor
    AÄ?abaloÄ?lu of the GedikpaÅ?a Church said.

    He said they started out in 2003 with four children, taught by teacher
    Heriknaz Avagyan.

    `Back then, no school would accept those children,' he said.

    This is what happens to children of `illegal Armenian workers' if they
    are born in Turkey. Their parents cannot apply for Turkish citizenship
    for their child. They cannot go back to Armenia either because then
    they will not be able to come back to Turkey; therefore, the child
    can't get an Armenian passport. According to laws in Turkey, only
    Turkish citizens of Armenian descent are allowed at `Armenian minority
    schools' in the country.

    `Churches do not just provide religious services. So we took
    responsibility and took those children in.'

    Since 2003 the number of students has gradually increased even though
    the Turkish government has allowed for those children to be accepted
    in local Armenian schools as `guest students' this school year.

    Only 48 students have been accepted with that status in more than 10
    Armenian schools in Ä°stanbul. For example, Bezciyan accepted 11
    students and Feriköy Merametçiyan accepted eight, according to figures
    from the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos.

    Avagyan said she is glad that children who do not have easy access to
    schooling at the church can now go to schools in other areas of
    Ä°stanbul that are close to where they reside, but she also said that
    this is not an ideal situation for those children's education because
    there is a likelihood that they will go back to Armenia one day and
    they need certificates to prove their educational status.

    `What does it mean to be a `guest student'? This is a new program and
    there are uncertainties. The Turkish government needs to consider that
    those children's parents are not here legally and that when they go
    back to Armenia, their children will need proof of their education,'
    she said.

    At the GedikpaÅ?a Church's school, Armenian teachers, who are also
    undocumented immigrants from Armenia, follow the educational calendar
    of Armenia, use the books which are used in Armenia and adhere to the
    educational system of Armenia in their teaching. They say this is the
    only way these children will succeed in their educational life when
    they go back to Armenia.

    `Parents say it is very important to them that their children learn
    the Armenian language,' a teacher from the church-school said.

    According to Avagyan, who is married to a Turkish citizen and sends
    her child to an Armenian school in Ä°stanbul, the Armenian language is
    not much emphasized in the local schools. On top of that, the Armenian
    language that they use is different than their version of the language
    -- Ä°stanbul's Armenians speak and learn Western Armenian, whereas
    Armenians in Armenia speak and learn Eastern Armenian.

    `I am now a legal resident of Turkey and my child is a Turkish
    citizen. It is fine that my child goes to a local Armenian school. But
    for the immigrants, it's a different story. If their children are
    educated in local Armenian schools, their further education will be in
    jeopardy in Armenia,' she said.

    A 2009 study -- the first and only study conducted on the status of
    the Armenian migrants in Turkey -- by researcher Alin Ã-zinian found
    that the main reasons behind immigration from Armenia to Turkey are
    the instability in Armenia that arose after the collapse of the Soviet
    Union, the 1988 earthquake in Armenia, tough economic conditions
    exacerbated by the closure of the Turkey-Armenia border as well as the
    Karabakh dispute. With economic conditions remaining unchanged in
    Armenia, the immigrants are likely to stay here as long as they can,
    and so will their children.

    Avagyan said the best solution for the immigrants' children would be
    to continue their education at the church-school.

    `But that is only until the fifth grade, since there are no
    appropriate conditions for more classes,' she said, and appealed to
    the Turkish government to be more considerate.

    `Those children need schooling and a diploma until they reach the age
    at which they will go to a university,' she added. `Otherwise, most of
    those uneducated children will spend their time by playing on the
    street unattended. Even though they are smart kids, they will work in
    low level and low pay jobs like their parents.'

    About 96 percent of the Armenian immigrants in Turkey -- whose numbers
    are estimated to be around 15,000 -- are women, and a majority of them
    work as house cleaners, nurses or babysitters, according to Alinian's
    research. Their monthly income varies between $500 and $1,000, and
    they generally reside in İstanbul's Kumkapı district.

    `They love Ä°stanbul, and they like Turks,' Rev. AÄ?abaloÄ?lu said. `In
    the last 10 years, they have been coming as families, not
    individually.'

    Therefore, there is even more need to think about those migrants'
    children's education, he points out.

    `If the government is sincere in its initiatives in that regard, it
    should find ways to either integrate those children in the Turkish
    education system or make possible a special status for their education
    according to the system in Armenia.'

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