Parliament to consider vetoed Education Law

Speaking after the President had vetoed a bill that would have allowed poor students to be given state scholarships to attend private schools, Education Minister Hüseyin Çelik said that the parliament would do what is necessary regarding the law. However, he ruled out an early recall of parliament, which has only just begun its summer recess.
The Minister also refused to say whether the law would be returned to the President unchanged after a second vote of parliament.
“I can’t influence the will of the parliament,” he said. “However, if the parliament took such a decision with compromise before, it will do the same thing again.”
Çelik said that the President’s justification for vetoing the law, that it would mean that poor students could be sent to private schools that were not conforming to the secular and democratic curriculum of Turkey’s education system, were the head of state’s own views.
“Talking about establishing schools for different purposes by some circles will cause a dilemma in Turkey like establishing schools for normal education and for other purposes,” he said. “This is the comment of the President. If I agreed with this comment, I would not ask officials to prepare such a law. This means that I don’t agree with this comment.”
As Turkey was a country that respected the rule of law, Çelik said that all private and public schools were subject to inspections of relevant bodies, in particular the National Education Ministry.
“If there are schools which give education to bring up people who have a mentality which will not be in line with the characteristics of secular and democratic Turkish Republic, the state should not permit them,” he said. “Providing education in line with democratic and secular characteristics of the republic is one of the main goals of national education. The national education system will not permit activities of schools that do not serve these basic goals. It will prevent activities of such a school.
“It is the constitutional and legal right of the president to return the first article. But, as the national education minister, it is not possible for me to accept and agree with some reasons for his veto.”