Turkish government to give bonus points for prayer rooms in private schools

Nuran Çakmakçı HÜRRİYET / ISTANBUL

A group of students from the southern city of Adana had created controversy in 2008 when they prayed on the roof of their high school building.

Turkey’s Education Ministry has decided to rate private schools into four classes, which will be defined by the number of points they collect by various achievements.The new rules were agreed upon after consultations with the Turkish Court of Accounts and Finance Ministry, daily Hürriyet has learned. Schools will be certified in four categories; A, B, C and D, which will be decided upon by the physical standards, management and organization structures, education procedures and supporting services they provide.The Education Ministry and the governor of the province will appoint two inspectors for a three-member delegation, which will include a representative of the association in which the private school is a member of. The delegation will grade the school over 30 days. Students and their parents will be able to check their school’s grade on the Internet. Additionally, the school will be able to apply for a potential upgrade after three months.Objective criteria have been set to define how many points a school will receive for a specific feature. A library and a conference room, for instance, will each bring 50 points to a school. A physics, chemistry and biology laboratory will equal 20 points. The same school will be able to receive 20 more points with a prayer room.A-class schools will be picked among the ones that have between 850-1000 points, while D-class schools are reserved for those that receive 500 points or less.