Elective Kurdish Classes Expand Across 25 Istanbul School Classrooms
At a Glance
Lawyer Suphi Ozgen announced that elective Kurdish classes are now running in 25 classrooms at an Istanbul school.
Student enrollment jumped from 75 last year to 250 this year, with 25% being Turkish students.
A shortage of Kurdish teachers prevented 1,000 applicants in Istanbul from taking the course.
Lawyer Suphi Ozgen, president and founder of the Kurdish Language Movement (Hezkurd), stated that for the first time in history, elective Kurdish language classes are being taught across 25 classrooms at a school in Istanbul's Esenyurt district.
Key Statements and Focus Areas
Ozgen told Channel8 that 250 students at the Istanbul school are currently enrolled in the elective Kurdish course, up from just 75 students last year.
He noted that one-fourth (25%) of the students taking the elective Kurdish course are Turkish.
Suphi Ozgen, a language rights advocate and a lawyer who has advocated for the Kurdish language in Northern Kurdistan and Turkey for several years, further highlighted that 1,000 students in Istanbul applied to study the Kurdish course this year.
However, he added that a shortage of Kurdish language teachers has prevented them from taking the class.
According to the lawyer, unified efforts could lead up to 100,000 students in Istanbul alone to apply for Kurdish classes next year.
Esenyurt is the largest district in Istanbul, with a population of nearly one million people, a significant portion of whom are Kurds who migrated from Northern Kurdistan.
Under current regulations, if at least 10 students at any school request the subject, a separate class must be established to provide two hours of instruction per week.
FYI
Turkey introduced Kurdish, covering both the Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects, as an elective subject in public middle schools in 2012 under the Living Languages and Dialects curriculum.
The policy allowed students in grades five through eight to receive two hours of weekly instruction if at least 10 students at a school requested the course.
Under Article 3 of Turkey's Constitution, Turkish remains the sole official language of the state and the primary medium of instruction in public schools.
While the 2012 reform ended decades of strict restrictions on Kurdish in public education, the government has maintained that it has no plans to adopt Kurdish as a foundational language of instruction.
Istanbul has long been a primary destination for internal migration from Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeastern provinces.
According to official statistics released in 2026, Esenyurt became the first district in Turkey to surpass one million residents.
Its large Kurdish population has made the district a central focus for mother-tongue education campaigns outside the southeast.
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