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Executive Summary

The project “Education for Peace II” began in June 2006 by a Turkish Cypriot NGO named POST-Research Institute, which was set up by a group of people whose aim is to work for the cultural, social and environmental improvement in Cyprus. POST-Research Institute’s vision is to make a difference, through social and cultural activities with its dynamic, effective and productive group, both at local and international levels. Its mission is to prepare projects that envisage the participation of the members who are involved or those who are interested in social and cultural matters.

The “Education for Peace II” project is a continuation of the first leg of the Education for Peace project that was carried out by POST-RI in 2003-4 and executed by UNOPS. The first project focused on the analysis of the fifth grade primary school books. Extra curricular activities were also conducted in order to pinpoint the elements that reproduce nationalism, hatred and prejudice against the ‘other’.

The results of the project highlighted that history textbooks (that had until then, been used) in the north side of the island, contained many nationalistic themes and references. However, during the last three years a visible change has taken place in the education system of the Turkish Cypriot community. The first visible change involved the revision of history books used in lower secondary schools. Since 2004, the Cyprus History book has been revised twice and these revisions were mainly concerned with either amending historically incorrect information or eliminating various nationalistic drawings or words.

Major Objectives of the Project:

With regards to the above mentioned context, the main aim of this project is to re-evaluate and analyse the changes that have occurred, by questioning the whole educational curricula. This questioning involves the analysis of teaching methods used, including the tools that are employed in the classroom and more significantly, the teaching materials used.

The revision of school textbooks in the northern part of the island was a major attempt to ‘change’ the policy and narrative of the history books used. The “Education for Peace II” project is a comparative study of this ‘change’. As the first project mainly focused on textbook analysis, the screening and encoding of ethno-centric and nationalistic themes in the primary school history and social science books, “Education for Peace II” is a comparative analysis of the textbooks before and after the revision.

Main Findings of the Project:

The comparative analysis of the old and the revised history textbooks of the first three grades of secondary school, illustrates that the old books (written by Dr. Vehbi Zeki Serter) subjectively describe the history of Cyprus by legitimizing the “national goal” of the Turkish Cypriot community and denying the legitimacy of the “other”. The old history textbooks can be viewed as a mere reflection of nationalistic policies which are based on an ethnocentric perception of history. Moreover, the books have been written in a manner to justify and legitimize the nationalist policy of partition, by instrumentalising the past.

On the contrary, the new history textbooks are essentially far from the ethnocentric approaches used in the old textbooks. Instead, the new books evaluate historical issues from a humanistic perspective. Moreover, there is no obvious indication of a national enemy or the “other” in the new books. One of the most fundamental characteristics of the new books is the emphasis on social history and its role in general history. By emphasizing the importance of social history, the new history textbooks do not demonize the “other”, but instead “normalize” it.

The old textbook did not provide students with space to think, analyze, and interpret events from differing perspectives. However, the new books are strikingly different, as they encourage students to employ critical thinking and analyse the subject matter using multi-perspectives. The revised textbooks contain many visual images including photographs, drawings and caricatures. These visual images are used as an additional learning tool and help to further explain and highlight important points. By and large, the pictures contained in all three books attempt to provide a balanced view of Cyprus and are very informative.

In brief, the main difference between the old and the new textbooks lies in the very idea of seeing Cyprus as the mainland, versus ‘Cyprus as a geographical extension of Anatolia’. The new textbooks talk in terms of the former, whilst the old book attempted to prove the latter. The front cover of all three textbooks illustrates an outline of the map of Cyprus in the centre, without borders. The exclusion of borders on the diagram can be interpreted as an attempt to show students that Cyprus is an island (as a whole).

Moreover, the new history book has been dived into three volumes, whereas previously one book was used by all students in the first three years of lower secondary school. The first volume is concerned with general information about the island of Cyprus, including the Prehistoric period and Cyprus during the Middle Ages. The second volume of the book focuses on the Ottoman Period, and the third volume primarily concentrates on the contemporary history of Cyprus.

In the first textbook, the old discourse is replaced with ‘Cyprus is our mainland. The Second textbook attempts to highlight the importance of mutual respect towards one another’s culture and beliefs, and stresses the importance of a peaceful co-existence between the people of Cyprus. These messages are in striking contrast to the messages found in the old textbooks. With regards to the very sensitive issue of the “Cyprus problem”, the third book neither promotes hatred nor portrays the ‘other’ as the enemy. However, the book does conclude by encouraging nationalistic feelings regarding the events of 1974.

The comparative analysis between the old and revised history textbooks of the first three grades of the secondary school also involves various stakeholders, such as the pupils themselves, teachers and parents. Therefore, the research team organized with the help of KTOEOS Research Center three workshops (Nicosia, Famagusta and Kyrenia) in order to feed into the findings of the final report. Questionnaires were prepared and during the field trips to schools (which involved interviews with teachers), history teaching methodologies and the practicability of the textbooks were discussed with the help of KTOEOS Research Center . There were many positive responses by teachers, to the new textbooks.  For example; “In the old books, you would see blood and hatred. Now you see joint demonstrations of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers at Lefke mines (CMC). And when you tell this story to pupils, they get shocked. Moreover, when you inform them that in the former years, Cypriots experienced bad economic conditions; they are surprised, because they didn’t know about such sufferings. Therefore, we must teach common things to our pupils.” Another teacher expresses, “I as a higher secondary school teacher (11th grade), taught the 6th grade lower secondary school history textbook in my class. Through this book, pupils discover that Cyprus history does not start in 1571 but 9000 BC. They also understand that Cyprus history is a compact matter and not separate for both people of the island.”

There were also some critical reactions by teachers, to the text books.  A common remark concerned the lack of time allocated to the teaching of Cyprus History. “We don’t have much time to teach the book. We have only 40 minutes a week and we don’t have a chance to use the caricatures and the other exercises in the textbooks.” “The education board wants us to complete 4 chapters in one semester. And there is not much time to do that. Because of this, most of us underline the most important parts of the book or write them on the board.” “The books are well written, but the physical infrastructure to support the textbooks is not sufficient. We have some DVD’s to show the students but there is no history map.”

The teachers also commented on the reaction of students to the new textbooks.  One teacher remarked: “Regarding the new history textbooks, the pupils in the Dipkarpaz village very much enjoyed the new books and found them colourful and joyful. Compared to other students in their age group living in urban areas, who have more opportunities to use computers and other technological tools, the village kids don’t enjoy such privileges. This is one of the main reasons why they loved the new textbooks so much.”