The Ministry of National Education’s (MEB) forced reassignment of high school teachers working in “project schools” to other schools against their will has sparked student protests and boycotts in many provinces.

The fast-spreading protest movement by high school students is a continuation of a wave of mass protests that erupted last month following the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Istanbul mayor and presidential candidate.

Last Friday, MEB announced the results of the “2025 Teacher Assignment and Administrator Appointment to Educational Institutions Implementing Specific Programs and Projects”. Because their tenure has not been renewed, more than 20,000 teachers have been removed from staff as “surplus to norms” and forced to choose other schools.

The education trade unions argued that most of the teachers who were replaced were “dissidents” and that loyalty to the education system and the government, rather than merit and performance, were the main criteria for appointment.

Yeliz Toy, Personnel, Legal and Collective Bargaining Secretary of Eğitim-İş union, said in her statement that “thousands of teachers who have been left out of the staff are forced to make preferences for other schools”. “If they do not make a preference, they will be appointed ex officio,” she said, adding that this was against procedure and that the practice amounts to exile.

Toy explained: “district groups have been created for teachers. The Ministry has not only included the districts where teachers can go, but also the districts where they cannot go. In fact, it says: ‘Either you make a choice or I will assign you’... Among these schools there are places that are 150 kilometres away [from their home], places that cannot be reached by changing four transport vehicles”.

High school students reacted in defence of their exiled teachers. Thousands of students in dozens of high schools across the country boycotted classes and held schoolyard protests despite threats of disciplinary action. In many high schools, students were supported by alumni and parents.

The students of Izmir Atatürk High School, where 50 of its 90 teachers have been made surplus to norms, said in a statement: “The deep-rooted 130-year-old school culture of our school has existed with the accumulation of teachers and students together. This culture cannot be maintained without teachers. We, the students, do not accept the unjustified suspension of our teachers.”

A student who spoke during the protest at Bursa Gazi Anadolu High School said: “the biggest part of the success of the schools belongs to the teachers who have been working for years. These appointments, which are made without any objective criteria, overshadow merit and hinder the pedagogical development of students. Continuity and trust are essential in education”.

The same student added: “Teachers’ demands should be taken into consideration and they should be allowed to continue their duties in the project schools. There should be no room for arbitrary and political applications in an area as vital as education. We stand by our teachers”.

Although the immediate cause of the students’ opposition is the exile of their teachers, there is growing anger over the poor quality of education, lack of a future, growing social inequality and state repression.

Last month, university students were at the forefront of the protests that started with İmamoğlu’s arrest; not only the government but also the CHP administration had difficulties in controlling this mass movement.

The current generation of students has lived their entire lives under the governments of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has ruled the country since 2002. For the young generations, Erdoğan’s governments are identified with inequality, lack of a future, and oppression. In the general election on May 14, 2023, support for the AKP among young people aged 18-30 was only 22 percent.

Among the youth, targeted through the government’s assault on public education, the promotion of religious obscurantism, nationalist ideology, censorship and bans, anger against the existing order is exploding. The government is increasingly resorting to force.

During last month’s protests, nearly 2,000 mostly young people exercising their constitutional and democratic rights were detained, and more than 300 were arrested. The arbitrariness and illegality of these measures—aimed at intimidating the working class and youth—was so obvious that most of those detained were released in the following weeks. But almost 80 people are still in prison.

The CHP, which received the votes of 50 percent of young people under 30 who voted in the 2023 general election, offers no way out for young people because of the class interests it represents.

As the Socialist Equality Group in its statement on the protests explained, “the CHP is trying to divert the mass movement into the electoral framework and thus suppress it. Like the Erdoğan government, it is opposed to a revolutionary working class movement that would challenge the capitalist system and bourgeois rule from which these fundamental problems stem… In order to calm down the fears of the Turkish bourgeoisie of a revolution, the CHP sought to reassure the imperialist powers and get their support by declaring that it is a ‘NATO party’.”

The radicalization and search for a way out among young people needs to be directed towards the international working class and the perspective of socialism.

The immense social crisis in Turkey and the Erdoğan regime’s naked turn to authoritarianism is a product of the global crisis of the capitalist system. In the service of the US capitalist oligarchy, the fascist Donald Trump is building a presidential dictatorship, overturning the constitution. The social and democratic rights of the working class and youth are under intense attack, while science and universities are under attack.

Trump’s return to power has accelerated the attacks of the ruling class around the world. Everywhere the oligarchy is calling for the slashing of public resources such as education and health care and the diversion of society’s wealth to armaments, corporations and the banks. Faced with huge social opposition in the working class to the agenda of imperialist war and class war at home, the ruling class is turning to dictatorial rule. That is why governments wage war on democratic rights and encourage fascist movements.

The yearning of the youth for a decent future based on democracy and social equality requires the struggle for socialism against the bankrupt capitalist system. We call on young people to stand by this struggle and to join the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) in the fight for this programme.