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One out of ten children in Turkey are still not studying and almost three quarters are girls. The educational reform only has 8 years of compulsory schooling, but what will happen after the girls are finished with these 8 years?

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Keeping Girls in Schools in Turkey Reporter: One out of ten children are still not studying, almost three quarters are girls. Education reform as in Turkey hoped at providing urban schooling with the added bonus of helping integrate children from predominantly Kurdish communities into mainstream Turkish society. But preserving their cultural identity is a key factor in how the Kurds view the value of national education. Female: Integrating the Kurds into the broader Turkish community is a very sort of political issue in a sense because for many Kurds, it’s a forced simulation of their culture so there has also been a good deal of resistance to the national education system for that reason. Also, you have to bear in mind that many of these children by the time they reach school, they still haven’t perhaps spoken a single word in Turkish. Metin Cakir: These regional boarding schools exist in only a few countries in the world. The Trade Union’s worry is that these schools are in reality sent us off assimilation. We feel that these are places where the policy of Turkey to find the Kurds that takes place. We think that it’s not right to integrate the Kurds with Turkish society through boarding schools. The will of our Trade Union is that the Kurds must have education in them other time. An integration should take place in this context. Reporter: There’s another complication in Turkey’s grand plan for improving education. What happens at the end of eight years compulsory education? Here in Van province, more than half the rural population is unemployed according to Turkey’s chamber of commerce. The years of conflict have starved the region of investment. For up to six months of the year, most men from Yaprek’s village travel to the richer west of the country to find work. The men debate whether all these education for girls will go to waste. Male: It’s not worth it if the girls are educated and come back to the village. The purpose in our area is that people take education in relation to financial gain, to study and get a job in the end and then they will bring money to the parents and the village. That is the main purpose. Dr. Mine Tan: Education by itself is a very highly valued thing in Turkey. It’s almost like the foreign currency. Everybody wants to get this educational certificate. And the more you get, the happier you are. But the thing is that as long as you don’t provide each ones to the education you give for children, then there are the rising hopes and expectations unfulfilled and can’t follow as I think. Girl: I want to finish high school to go to a university to get a profession to become a doctor. It is going to be worth it. I won’t mind leaving my family on the village. Reporter: But Turan Yilmaz, one of the village’s few university graduates argues that there are still benefits from increasing the schooling period even if the girls return to the village. Male: When we talked to the girls who have returned to the village after completing their education, they are socialized and educated and a lot of things that are very useful. They know about family planning, about social interaction, it has a major effect. Girl: I think that it’s still necessary because there is a difference between those who study and those who don’t such as knowing how to socialize when they go somewhere. The way they behave is different. Reporter: Yaprek’s sister Kiamet understands this difference from first hand experience. Kiamet: You see yourself as ignorant. And because you don’t have a social circle, you don’t have friends. You start to see the men as superior. The men’s superiority or when the woman becomes apparent. It is something you don’t like. It’s unappealing. It makes the lives for women more constrained. Reporter: Recent research into the courses of absenteeism showed that rural families want more practical causes for children like home economics and agricultural studies linking education to the realities of rural life. Dr. Ziya Selcuk: If the girls are educated more, of course finding work is important. But we feel that their education is more important, more primary. A demand from mayors to be employed in Turkey has traditionally been higher than females. We prioritize girl’s education not just in terms of its contribution to the economy but in bringing up children, society’s mental state, being more agreeable and increasing women’s participation in the society. Reporter: Extending the length of compulsory education from eight to twelve years is firmly on the government’s agenda. But commentators are concerned about this extension without first consulting key players, something that’s been lacking to date. Dr. Mine Tan: I would have like more evaluation going on at these levels. I would like quickness probably for female school managers. I would have liked the sensitivity and the gender mainstreaming introduced to teacher education. The text books, the syllabus, the curriculum and the teaching methods are in need of improvement. And more often than not, there are also women who are not represented in the materials and the curriculum in the school basis with the men and the boys. Reporter: In the last six years, absenteeism among children aged 11 to 13 has dropped from one in three to one in ten across Turkey and it’s girls’ enrollments that have improved the most. But with three quarters of a million, girls only attending school on an irregular basis, there are still lessons being learned. Female: What the government really needs to do is to operate at the very grassroots level rather than imposing these grand national strategies from anchor. I think it needs to get the local governments much more involved, NGO’s much more involved. NGO’s that would be able to prove certainly to the girls and their families but as a result of their education, they can improve their lives.