Education Ministry’s love of Nur sect knows no end

. It has emerged that support has been given to the Hayrat Foundation, championed by the Ministry of National Education under the pretext of “values education”, has also been given support in collecting “aid” in schools.
 
 
Ozan Çepni
 
It has emerged that the Hayrat Foundation, championed by the Ministry of National Education under the pretext of “values education”, has also been given support in collecting “aid” in schools. The Hayrat Foundation, part of the Nur sect, which the Cabinet consented in 2016 to be an association beneficial to the public, has now begun to collect funds in Ministry of National Education schools. The ministry approved the religious foundation’s application in four days and the instruction has been given for Hayrat’s projects to be announced in all schools.
 
Considerable resources have been made available the Hayrat Foundation, which intensified its activities along with President Tayyip Erdoğan’s Ottoman language pronouncement in 2014 and has become active in all areas of education over the past four years. The Ministry of National Education, having opened the doors of schools to the Nur-affiliated Hayrat Foundation, has now resolved to support it in collecting funds in the guise of “aid”.
 
The aid association of the Hayrat Foundation, on the “Yazıcılar” wing of the Nur sect, had received the Cabinet’s consent under a resolution prior to 2016 as an association beneficial to the public. The foundation, under the name Hayrat Humanitarian Aid Association, was also included among “bodies that may collect aid without obtaining permission” under a Cabinet resolution in 2017 at the Interior Ministry’s behest. Having gained state support, the association, founded in 2013, began to organise aid campaigns outside the country’s borders in line with policies followed abroad by the government.
 
Attachment to “brotherhood”
 
The Ministry of National Education, which for years has permitted the Humanitarian Aid Foundation to collect millions of lira in schools under the “Every Class has an Adopted Sibling” project subsumed under “values education”, has this time opened its doors to the Hayrat Foundation in the name of “brotherhood”. The foundation applied to the Ministry of National Education with a request for “aid” to be collected and support in all state and private schools as part of the “The Time has Come for Brotherhood” project. With the Ministry of National Education Innovation and Educational Technology General Directorate approving the application with great speed in four days, the instruction has been given for Hayrat activities to be announced at all Ministry of National Education institutions in Turkey and abroad on a “voluntary” basis.
 
No limits
 
The Ministry of National Education, having compiled circulars announcing the Nurists’ project to all schools, has enabled the foundation to collect material funds through staging activities of unlimited scope under the categories of aid boxes, ticketed functions, fairs and “various events” at schools under the coordination of “voluntary” school managers and educationalists and with “voluntary” parents and pupils. It is notable that the money collected will be deposited into the association’s account with receipts made out in teachers’ names, as is the international reach being acquired by the Hayrat Foundation, with its religious activities in many countries chiefly in Africa.