Long debate in parliament

Turkey Approves Controversial Education Measure

It marks a significant victory for the secular government in its fight to restrict the influence of the Islamic fundamentalist movement.

Islamists who fiercely opposed the measure say it will lead to the closure of hundreds of religious schools.

The bill was approved after a final debate lasting twenty-three hours. It extends compulsory secular education at state schools from five to eight years.

Angry protests against education reforms

"The basic aim of the education reform is to protect our children from dangerous currents and movements," said the Finance Minister Zekeriya Temizel.

The secularist schooling reforms are at the heart of a military-led campaign against religious activism in Turkey and have fuelled street protests by Islamists.

After Friday prayers police fired water cannon and used batons to break up a crowd of about 2,000 Islamists in Istanbul. More than 100 people were arrested across the country during demonstrations which had been outlawed by authorities.

The new legislation will please the Turkish military, which were worried that children in religious schools were being indoctrinated by fundamentalists.

A row over the alleged spread of Islamism in Turkey led to the resignation of the country's first Islamist Prime Minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in June.

The first religious schools, known as Imam and Preacher schools, were built in 1951 to meet the demand for trained Muslim clergymen. Islamic schools devote eight hours every week to the study of Arabic and the Koran, the Muslim holy book.