A coefficient story

Everyone, aged and weighty, concerned and unconcerned, is talking about the coefficient policy, but no one is listening to the direct victims of this affair. Yet there are hundreds of thousands who experienced this event directly. Hundreds of thousands of stories, each containing a drama in full. Here is one of the stories that came to my mailbox in response to the pieces I wrote on the subject. Moreover, it is the story of a reader of mine who is a victim of the coefficient but not an Imam-Hatip graduate.

THE COEFFICIENT TORTURE

When a writer who had survived a Nazi camp was once asked how he endured the tortures, he is said to have answered: "The hope of being able to write one day what I lived through always kept me strong...". Once freed from the Nazi camp, should the man write what he had lived through while I sit by?

There are those who know... The Nazis killed disabled people too in that period, on the grounds that they spoiled the race... Then, so that they would not go to waste(!), they began using them in experiments. For example, subjects laid in a pool full of ice were watched for days, waiting for them to die... How many days it took the poor wretches to die was noted down and "endurance" statistics were compiled... As for the other experiments carried out for the training of German officers, let me not even mention them...

Is there another such disgrace?... There is... Namely: I see the coefficient torture inflicted on vocational high schools as not one bit different from this... I am very curious; what profound knowledge did they arrive at, I wonder(!), as a result of a nine-year experiment... I know very well what their aim is; but still, frankly, I would have liked to hear it from their own mouths...

Someone must have said to them: "If the torture is in China, go and bring it"... Or in Germany... Whereas we used to go to China for knowledge... Or to other places...

Please look back at what they did to us... Do not forget, O Turkey! Write down this torture; record it somewhere... When we die, do not bury us!... Put us in museums; our hair, our skulls, our pens, our paper, our tuition receipts, our in-field(!) diplomas, even the headscarves of some of us...

Curses we have never known pour from our mouths today. You cannot know how full of anger we are, and how dignified... We are angry; because you have ruined years of ours that you could never pay for. We are dignified; because we are still hopeful... We are breathing... We survived in spite of you...

***

The year is 1999. Zeynep is in the second year of high school... She is studying in the ready-to-wear-technical department, where the math and science courses predominate... Zeynep writes a poem in the second year of high school... Then another... Another one... Her Turkish teacher says: "Well done." She writes a composition, too, afterwards... Zeynep, by now, loves literature most... How could she not?.. "You can't," said her buddy, running up to her... Zeynep laughs it off as a joke... "Don't laugh, Zeynep," says her buddy... Literature is now out of field... Literature is now out of the question... Don't laugh, Zeynep!... Zeynep loves life; she says "never mind." "Then I'll write poems and study textile engineering at the same time. Why am I taking all these math and science courses?..." Her buddy again: "It won't work," she says... "That's out of field too..." "But I will study textiles for four years at this school," says Zeynep... What can I say? May it turn out for the best... "Then let me study fashion design," says Zeynep...

"Fashion design: the two-year one is fine; but the four-year one is out of field, Zeynep," her buddy says this time... Oh, patience, Zeynep, patience... Zeynep: "This can't be! Come on; let's transfer to a general high school..." Her buddy shows Zeynep the form in her hand... Zeynep reads: "If you changed schools after such-and-such a date, tick here... But tick it without going outside the box... Most importantly, tick it without exhausting your patience..." Is that all? It is not... "Now, even if we finish the general high school, we are still vocational high school graduates," says her buddy... "Oh, patieeence, and if possible, salvaaation soon..." "We have been sealed, marked, Zeynep... Zeynep, Zeyneeepp!..."

"What do we have left?" says Zeynep... "From the verbal track: ready-to-wear/clothing teaching," says her buddy... We are numerical; but we will take the exam from the verbal track! I understand(!)... "If all we can be is a tailor, why so many math and science courses? Tell me, buddy?" says Zeynep...

Will my fabric to be sewn one day meet a catalyst? Or will my pins turn out to be vectors?... Or will H2O ruin my patterns?... In Distance equals Speed times Time, how many shirts do you think I will sew?... Shall we take the square root and find the volume of what has happened to us?...

***

I have presented you a brief summary of what vocational high school youths have been going through for nearly ten years... It was actually longer... I would have liked to tell all the disgraces over pages, but perhaps even this much is enough to explain many things... Come on, tell it to those who do not know(!)...

Do you know that most of those studying in a preschool teaching department today are graduates of general high schools? Yet the graduates of the kindergarten department should be more numerous... Just ask which high school most textile engineers today graduated from... And which courses they did or did not take in high school... Come on, investigate!

Do the architects(!) of this system, which not even such a strong government has managed to correct until now, truly love this homeland, the children of this homeland? Come on, comment!...

God willing, the education system will never fall into such a state again...

I wholeheartedly share the pains of all my vocational high school brothers and sisters who went through this process... Whatever happens, let us never turn back from the road we have set out on. Three things light our way and speed us up: our faith, our determination and our patience... Let us not set out without taking them with us. And before setting out let us always recite this prayer: "O God, protect me from the wrath of the unresponsive society, the unconscious educator and those who do not love their homeland..." Amen.

Z.S.Ayfer ÖĞÜT