Türk Eğitim Tarihinde Sekülerizm

The history of Turkısf education covers the debates about the question of what sort of individual we aim to educate and which teaching contents are required for the acquisition of the features that ach person should have. In the center of this debate has stood the dilemma between the education based on religion and the education based on secularism. Thsi debate means essential values because the aim of both of the education system radically differs from one another in terms of their outlook on ontologic, epistemologic values and the content of their education they use to educate the individual. Thus the sole concept which should take place in this debate is secularism. This term derives from the Latin word “soeculum” which means “century” and it also has the meaning of connotations of time and place. Time indicates its being at the moment and the place indicates its worldly existence in the world. Therefore, the state is considered the greatest authority since it takes its power from t its people. Generally speaking, secularism can be regarded as the term which confines the religion in its own field and confines the state in its own field. The history of secularism can be defined as the history of the history ofthe history of western reformations. The changes experienced in the Ottoman Empire from the 18th century and 20th century are social and politcal history of the process from the religious perception to secular perception, from the reign of sultanate andcaliphate to constitutioanl monarchy and republicanism, from the subject to the citizenship, from the community to the nation and finally from the Ottoman identity tothe Turkish identity. In Ottoman and Turkey the history of islam has been considered as the process of the fact that islam lost its effect and the secularism gained victory. However, during the Republic period all the islamic education institituions were closed down due to the new educaional law called Tevhid-i Tedrisat”within the framework ofthe secular education system.