Osmanlı Modernleşme Sürecinde Eğitim Yapısında Değişim ve Dönüşüm: Sultanîler

Abstract

Throughout history, the concept of education has played a very important role in the ideological, sociological and cultural construction of societies. This concept has been shaped within the framework of different policies in each period and has experienced various processes of change and transformation in line with the needs of the society. Modernization activities that began in the late 19th century in the Ottoman Empire gained new acceleration with the Imperial Edict of Reorganization (the Tanzimat Edict or The Imperial Rescript of Gulhane) proclamated on November 3, 1839. Accordingly, the proclamation of the Tanzimat Edict is too important an event to be used to name only one period. It is considered to be an official beginning of radical changes in the political, military, economic and cultural spheres of the Ottoman Empire. The Tanzimat Era is examined as a period in which the current policies of the Turkish education system have changed both institutionally and theoretically. In addition to being a period when the idea of modern education 19th century was formed and transferred to the future, the seeds of the productive generation that formed the core of today's society were discarded an important step in history of Turkish education. The transformation of the education policies of the Ottoman Empire after the declaration of the Tanzimat Edict was carried out within the framework of a specific plan through various hierarchical arrangements with the Maarif-i Umumiye Regulation, which came into force in 1869. In this direction, it is notable that for the first time the education-politics relationship is under control as a whole. In this period, the hierarchical reorganization of the educational steps as well as the education-politics relationship is an important event. Lack of education level above primary education institutions within the Ottoman education system and inadequate education during the transition to higher education, brought with it the need for various hierarchical arrangements. Accordingly, with the opening of the Sultani’s that formed the focal point of the thesis, it was not only possible to establish the secondary education level in the eyes of the empire. The opening of the Sultani’s is the first educational institution to use modern educational principles and methods while responding to a required level of education. Founded as an important indicator of the Ottoman Empire's educational modernization efforts, the sultani’s have been de facto in the light of the Education Policies of the Tanzimat Era as a modern secondary education institution that can be used by citizens of different religions and communities living in the Ottoman lands. At the end of the 19th century, the sultani’s found the first examples. In the Era of Abdulhamid II, quantity made great progress in terms of quality when it came to the Second Constitutional Era. In this study, the structural and intellectual change of education policies and the reflections of this change on the Ottoman society structure were examined in the period after the declaration of the Tanzimat Edict. With this study, the Sultani’s which are still continuing their education activities at the high school level today and the people who are educated in these institutions, in addition to their role in modernization, it is tried to explain the role they play in the implementation of modern policies.