Thousands of Turkish opposition supporters demonstrated in the capital Ankara on Tuesday against a government attempt to railroad a new education bill through parliament which secular parties say is designed to promote Islamic schooling. The government wants to overturn a 1997 law imposed with the backing of the military which extended compulsory education from five to eight years, but also stopped under-15s attending religious "imam hatip" schools.
That led to a sharp decrease in the numbers at the schools which were originally set up to train Muslim clerics. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and nearly half his cabinet attended imam hatip schools. The main secular opposition People's Republican Party (CHP) agrees on the need for education reform, but says Erdogan is seeking revenge for the 1997 law and attempting to bring about his stated desire to raise a "religious youth". A 2010 World Bank study showed only 16 percent of 15-year-olds in Turkey attend schools with average reading, maths or science test scores comparable to or above an OECD average.