Pak-Turk Schools to be taken over by Turkey's Maarif Foundation

[HAIDER]

Turkey’s Maarif Foundation will take over the administration of Pak-Turk Schools in Pakistan following the registration of the foundation as an INGO by the Ministry of Interior.

The registration comes after the interior ministry denied extending the visas of existing Turkish staff of Pak-Turk schools present in the country. The staff have been asked to leave the country.

The Maarif Foundation is funded by the Saudi government and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and was founded in 2016. The foundation will take over the management of 28 schools in the country.

The 28 officials of the foundation, who have arrived in Pakistan, are undergoing a two-month long English language course at the National University of Modern Languages (Numl) in Islamabad.

“We see the arrival of the Maarif Foundation as a bad omen for Pakistan. The new administration will radicalise the mainstream education in the country. The United States and European countries have not allowed the foundation in their countries,” said a senior administrator of Pak-Turk Schools.

The school official added that Afghanistan has also refused to hand over Pak-Turk schools to the foundation.

The Pak-Turk schools used to be administered by a foundation linked to Fethullah Gulen, once an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However, after an abortive military coup in July 2016, the Turkish leadership blamed Gulen for sponsoring the overthrow attempt, resulting in a global crackdown on the religious and educational network led by him.

The Turkish government, in the wake of the attempted coup, jailed over 120,000 individuals on charges of facilitating rebels.

The Turkish foreign minister had in August asked Pakistan to close the institutions. In the second week of August, the management of the chain removed the Turkish principals of their 28 schools and colleges and also dissolved the board of directors which had representation from Turkish nationals.

When the Turkish faculty's visas expired in September 2016, the Pakistani government said it would not extend them.

The Interior Ministry also rejected an application filed by the affectees pleading for an extension in their visas, asking all affected individuals to leave the country by November 20. The decision was announced two days before Erdogan visited Pakistan in November last year.

However, the Sindh High Court later suspended the deportation order; the high courts of KP, Punjab and Balochistan had followed suit.

A spokesman for the UNHCR confirmed that the affectees will stay in UN protection until November 2017 and that efforts are underway to resettle them in another country.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1314766/pak-turk-schools-to-be-taken-over-by-turkeys-maarif-foundation

 

[war&peace]

I hope they uphold the same standards or make them even better.

 

[Prawnsroo]

Its still Turkish organisation, so I am happy that schools might continue functioning they were, but the 'funded by saudis' part worries me a little..

 

[Sugarcane]

The Maarif Foundation is all set to take over the administration and control of the Fethullah Gülen Pak-Turk schools and colleges in Pakistan after the successful conclusion of diplomatic and backdoor channel discussions between Ankara and Islamabad. According to sources in Pakistan and Turkey, the Pakistani government is ready to give the control of the Fethullah Gülen schools to the Turkish authorities. In a weekly briefing in Islamabad on Thursday, Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesperson, Muhammad Nafees Zakaria said: "We are in contact with the Turkish authorities to make a decision of these schools. However, the one [matter] that is more considerable is Turkey might suggest to us an entity or organization to take over these schools and colleges."

The Pakturk schools in Pakistan are registered under a charity and nongovernmental organization. According to the draft of the relevant Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) available to this correspondent, the agreement was made between the Economic Affairs Division of Pakistan and the Pak-Turk International Education Foundation. The document reveals that Pak-Turk International Education Foundation is registered in the Republic of Turkey under the Charity Act. Subsequently, if the organization's registration is cancelled by Turkish authorities, it will no longer be able to operate legally in Pakistan.

The seven-page MoU is simple and was signed on Oct 30, 1999, four years after of the schools launched, by the then Country Representative Halit Esendir and Joint Secretary Economic Affairs Division, Zaheer Ahmed. The agreement may be terminated at any time upon three months' notice given by either the Economic Affairs Division or Pak-Turk. Another registration of Pak-Turk is in the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) under the registration CUIN 0076038, dated May 25, 2011. This means that for 12 years the group just worked without any registration on a simple MoU to make millions of dollars for the Gülenist empire in Pakistan.

The MoU has been violated numerous of times by the administration Pak-Turk schools and colleges. The first violation is that these schools and colleges were meant to be for the poorest of the poor in Pakistan and yet became the schools of elites in the Pakistan. To understand what pushed the Pak-Turk administration from a charity organization toward a business entity and why they threw out the education of the poorest from their MoU, it is best to know that the fees of these schools are approximately $300 per month for A/O Level. This amount in Pakistan rupees makes more than 30,000, an impossible sum even for a middle class family to afford. The sources revealed that the Maarif Foundation will make these schools ideal for those children from poorer backgrounds, those whom Pak-Turk has exploited over the last two decades to build its corporation.

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