Medium of instruction in Kurdish language department changed to Turkish

Photo: AA

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Dicle University in the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakır has announced that the students of the Kurdish Language and Literature Department will write their theses in Turkish and it has changed the language of instruction to Turkish.

The change has been made on the grounds that permission by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) is required to change the medium of instruction to another language than Turkish.

Selim Temo, an academic who was discharged from his post upon a statutory decree, said on Twitter that "Writing theses in the Kurdish language at universities' Kurdish Language and Literature departments have been banned and Turkish has become the medium of instruction. This is what domestic and national academia is like!"

Temo shared images from the university's student affairs system showing that the medium of instruction for classes such as "Kurdish folk literature," "classical Kurdish literature" and "Kurdish folk poem" are stated as Turkish.

Medium of instruction in Kurdish literature classes is stated as Turkish. (Image: Selim Temo/ Twitter)

The language of instruction is English in several prominent universities in the country, such as the Middle East Technical University (METU) and Boğaziçi University. (EMK/VK)