​Parents report their children undergo psychological traumas in religious infant's schools

In the last couple of years, the number of Ottoman Islamic model infant's schools has increased dramatically especially in the working class districts of İstanbul, Turkey. These infant's schools serve both as nurseries and pre-school educational facilities and they are unlawfully exempt from inspection by the Ministry of Education. Due to the high costs of nurseries and pre-schools and the desperation of working mothers to find a low-cost school for their children, these Ottoman model infant's schools turned out to be the only solution for working-class families.

Parents from a working-class district of İstanbul, Turkey shared the traumatic experience of their children in these infant's schools with the local media.

"HE STARTED TO WET HIS CLOTHS AND BULLY HIS YOUNGER BROTHER"

Fidan, one of the mother's interviewed by the local media, told that she enrolled her son in an infant's school in her neighbourhood when he was 3 years old, continuing there for two years. Noting that university students used to teach in that school voluntarily, Fidan says her son started to show psychological problems since they gave an education unfit for the age of her child.

Seeing that her son used to wet his clothes and bully his younger brother, Fidan took her son to a psychologist and learned that her son is undergoing a depression. Fidan says that her son wanted to paint and yet he was drawing only trees and houses without any image of a human being. Because he learnt at the infant's school that drawing an image of a human being was a sin. Fidan says that her son is attending a regular school at the moment and goes to a rehabilitation centre to treat "speech and intellect impairment".

"MOM, DON'T GO TO WORK! IT IS A SIN"

Sevinç, another mother interviewed, says that she had to send her child to an infant's school when he was 5 years old. Sevinç says her son started to wet his clothes and damage the furniture and objects right after he started that school.

Sevinç tells that her son said to her "It's a sin for mothers to work. Mom, please do not sin, do not go to work. My father can look after us. Your money is sinful. Don't buy me things with that money." She says that they took him away from that school and sent him to a regular school. Sevinç notes that no official investigation had been carried out for that infant's school although she filed a complaint two times.

Psychologists note that when children are indoctrinated with the concept of an "all knowing, all seeing God", they start to develop a sense of fear for being watched all time and they cannot cope with these kinds of feelings. This fear results in wetting beds at nights and intensive fear during the day. Children undergoing these anxiety disorders show learning disabilities.

Ottoman model infant's schools, called "sıbyan mektepleri" in Arabic, were elementary training schools for children of ages 3 to 6 where Islamic prayers were memorised and practised and Arabic writing was taught. The boys and girls were given education in separate classes in these schools.

They were closed down with the Law on Unification of Education in 1924, following the foundation of Turkish Republic. The ruling AKP government had provided a legal channel for infant's schools when it ruled out in 2012 that the pre-school education is not compulsory. Infant's schools obtained legal status by means of a project of Religious Affairs of Turkey called "Pre-school Religion Education of Quran Courses". A year of a pilot project had been carried out in 2014-2015, and after that, infant's schools were legalised throughout Turkey.