Turkish students opt for Albanian, Bosnian languages

By Selma Kasap

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's National Education Ministry began distributing course material to middle school students studying Albanian as an optional language, officials said Monday.

In the 2017-2018 educational year 44 Turkish students opted to study Albanian at a middle school in the Aegean Izmir city.

Two-hours of Albanian lessons at school are given every week and optional lessons are given on the weekends.

The curriculum for Bosnian language is currently being designed by Trakya University.

Despite that 156 students at two middle schools in Izmir and Istanbul opted for Bosnian in the 2017-2018 educational year.

The ministry had signed an agreement with Trakya University on Oct. 21, 2016 to design Bosnian and Albanian courses for middle school students,

Under a 2015 agreement between Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Turkish is taught in more than 80 schools across Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Nearly 5 million Albanians reside in Turkey and 20,000 Bosnians migrated to Turkey from 1992-98, according to Turkey's Directorate General for Migration Management.

Following the breakup of Yugoslavia and Bosnia’s independence, its capital Sarajevo, came under attack from Bosnian Serb militias backed by the Yugoslav army, in what became the longest siege in modern history.

Between April 1992 and December 1995, an estimated 100,000 people were killed and 2.2 million displaced in Bosnia. Up to 50,000 women, mostly Bosniaks, were raped.