Minister Tekin meeting back on the agenda following Akit's co-education headline

The debate sparked by Yeni Akit's front-page headline, "End co-education," has taken on a new dimension due to the fact that the individuals whose views were featured in the report had recently met with Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin.

Cumhuriyet columnist Barış Pehlivan stated in his column today that the people Akit cited as "educators" had met with Minister Tekin last week. Pehlivan wrote that these individuals were guests of the Ministry of National Education as part of the ÇEDES project, received a plaque of appreciation from Tekin, and held "consultations."

For this reason, Pehlivan argued that Akit's call regarding co-education cannot be considered an independent initiative. In his column, he used the phrases, "Yes, in fact, this call is not independent; it was 'from the inside'."

Akit's report also included the claim that co-education has been abandoned in developed countries. Pehlivan countered this claim by stating that co-education remains the dominant and standard model in countries such as the USA, Germany, and France.

Following the debate, a statement from the TKP (Communist Party of Turkey) alleged that Akit made this move with the encouragement it received from Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin. In his column, Pehlivan also drew attention to the assessments Tekin has made in the past regarding co-education and recalled that Akit ran a headline 12 years ago stating, "Co-education is not mandatory."

As the debate over co-education returns to the agenda alongside topics of education policy and gender equality, Pehlivan interpreted Akit's headline as a "signal flare" regarding potential steps the government might take in the field of education.