International 'Education of Immigrant Children' Symposium kicks off

By Seda Sevencan

ISTANBUL (AA) – The International "Education of Immigrant Children" Symposium kicked off Thursday, aiming to discuss problems and practices in the education of immigrant children.

The two-day online event is organized by the Mardin Artuklu University Center for Migration Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM).

Speaking at the symposium, historian Meryem Karabekmez said that after the ‘93 War, nearly 1.5 million people migrated to Ottoman lands.

Analyzing the petitions written by immigrant students in order to continue their education after the ’93 War, Karabekmez talked about some conditions of the students at that time and the procedure for admission to schools.

She compared the problems of immigrant students in the period of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II and today's Syrian immigrant students, evaluating their experiences.

She went on to say that the language barrier is a bigger problem now compared to that period because the Ottoman Empire was a multinational state.

Mehmet Ihsan Ozdemir, a research assistant in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Mardin Artuklu University, spoke about the ‘Role of Syrian Teachers in Including Syrian Students in the Education Process in Turkey.’

Ozdemir touched on problems that teachers face such as administrative problems, language problems and financial problems.

Syria has been mired in a civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Over the past decade, around half a million people have been killed and more than 12 million had to flee their homes.

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees across the world, with some 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees, along with close to 320,000 persons of concern from other nationalities, according to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.