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Unification of Education

Atatürk did many things that 'unified' or improved education in Turkey. Education was made free, secular and co-educational. He also made primary school compulsory. He also thought strongly about women's education. This reform was very effective as literacy levels in 1923 were less than 9 percent and then in 1938 the percentage rose to more than 33 percent.

New Turkish Alphabet

When Atatürk decided to change the Arabic script to the Latin based script, he asked the experts: 'How long would it take?' Most of them replied: 'About 5 years' We shall do it," Atatürk said," within five months". The new alphabet consisted of 29 letters of which 8 were vowels and the other 21 were consonants and by the end of the 1920s, Turkey had fully adopted to it. This language reform was very effective and allowed children and adults to learn to read and write quickly.

"The cornerstone of education is an easy system of reading and writing. The hey to this is the new Turkish alphabet based on the Latin script."

Educational Reforms

 

 

"The governments most creative and significant duty is education."

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