Village Institutes of Turkey

In the 1930s, the primary schooling rate in Turkey was significantly low compared to the European states. Ninety percent of the population lived in villages without any schools and teachers. Therefore, promoting primary education was addressed as an issue concerning villages in Turkey. The seeds of the intellectual infrastructure in the emergence of institutes were sown at the beginning of the 20th century, during the Ottoman rule. To train teachers for villages, Village Teacher Training School [Köy Muallim Mektebi] was founded in 1927 and Village Instructor Training Course [Köy Eğitmen Kursu] in 1936. However, these initiatives were not sufficient in terms of quality and quantity. Village teacher training experiences, new education, and work school trends of Europe were analyzed by Turkish educators, opinions of foreign and Turkish experts were received, and the Village Institutes [Köy Enstitüleri] project was carried into effect based on the realities of Turkey. The first Village Institutes opened in 1937. They were established in a restricted area, with a limited budget, and a non-common curriculum until the Village Institute Law was promulgated in 1940. On April 17, 1940, the law prescribing their establishment was approved by the parliament. The number of the Village Institutes, which spread over the Turkish geography evenly, reached 21 by 1949. The period between 1940 and 1947 was when the Village Institutes were most productive. Learning by doing and principles of productive work were embraced at the Village Institutes. The curriculum consisted of three components: general culture, agriculture, and technical courses. In addition to their teaching duties, the primary school teachers that graduated from the Village Institutes undertook the mission of guiding villagers in agricultural and technical issues and having them adopt the nation-state ideology in villages. World balances changing after the Second World War also affected the Village Institutes. In 1946, the founding committee of the Village Institutes were accused of leftism and had to leave their offices for political reasons. After the founding committee stepped aside, the Village Institutes started to be criticized by being subjected to the conflict between left-wing and right-wing. Following the government changeover in 1950, radical changes regarding the curricula, students, and teachers of the institutes were made. Making the Village Institutes unique, the production- and work-oriented aspects were eliminated, and the institutes were closed down in 1954 and converted into Primary School Teacher Training Schools. Although the Village Institutes existed only between 1937 and 1954, their social, economic, and political effects were felt for a long time through the teachers, health officers, and inspectors they trained.

Free reading activities at village institutes: Why and how?

In this study, it was aimed to discuss the free reading activities (FRA) practised for 1 hour at 21 different Village Institutes in Turkey in pedagogical respects. In this regard, FRA, applied within the scope of an extra programme, was analysed in terms of content and method on the basis of cognitive and affective learning. When the findings of this research were evaluated, it was seen that raising literary readers is a part of the educational activities at the institute. The FRA is a programme design supporting the enrichment of intellectual, emotional, social and aesthetic developments. The main purpose of education in the village is the problem of selecting and preparing the books to be read during free reading hours in a well manner. The educators of the period implementing the FRAs created an original model of education appropriate to the social reality of the people and in accordance with their educational needs. Keywords: Free reading activities (FRAs), village institutes (VI), Turkish curricula, document review.

Initiative to Create Ideal Citizens in Rural Areas of Turkey: Assembly of Village Institutes

The subject of the present study is the criticism meetings held regularly in the Village Institutes that were implemented to modernize rural areas of Turkey (1940-1946). Those meetings are entitled as the Assembly of Village Institutes in the present study. The purposes of the criticism meetings were to transform the Institute's students and villagers into modern individuals, eliminate the anti-reform and traditional mentality and spread the idea of a republic in rural areas. This study aims to address the success of those meetings. In the study, first of all, the situation in the villages, the life of the villagers and their mentality before the initiative were explained. Afterwards, Village Institutes initiative as well as, the impressions of the students on the first day they came to the Institute were examined. The criticism meetings held in the Institutes were elaborately assessed, and some events that took place in those meetings were stated in accordance with their sources. Finally, the achievements and success of those criticism meetings were discussed. The present study revealed that the Village Institutes that emerged as a result of the village realities were designed according to the needs of the village. The criticism meetings enabled the transformation of village children, who were docile, submissive, insecure and unaware, into self-confident individuals who knew and sought their rights, and who struggled against injustice. Although this initiative was halted by the change of government in 1946, it enabled to raise about 20 thousand people in a very short time and created a new social status group in the villages.

The Newcomers Group

The Newcomers Group [YenilerGrubu] was formed in 1940 while its members were still students at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts under Leopold Levy (1840–1904), and was active through 1952. It is also known as the Harbor Group [LimanGrubu], in reference to the theme of the collective’s first exhibition, which featured scenes of waterfront life in Istanbul. Similar to art collective D Group (1933–1947), the Newcomers aimed to portray what they saw as uniquely Turkish social realities using formal strategies associated with Western modernity, including impressionist, fauvist, and cubist painting techniques. At the same time, the Newcomers claimed with greater urgency than the D Group that local artists were obligated to engage directly with Turkey’s general population. This preoccupation with the relationship of the artist in an elite social position to the larger national body was closely linked to ongoing debates both in state policy (reflected in the development of the Homeland Tours program from 1938–1943, and the Village Institutes from 1940–1954) and in the Turkish literary world. As a result, the Newcomers received ample press coverage and the support of major literary figures such as Hilmi Ziya Ülken (1901–1974) and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901–1962), who also sought to develop national art forms rooted in Turkish popular experience.