Turkey to exclude evolution theory from school education

Open source

According to Turkish officials, Charles Darwin's "controversial" theory "is too complicated to understand," so it was decided to remove it from the textbooks for grade 9. The decision of the Turkish government caused a storm in social networks, the Russian service of BBC reports.

On Wednesday, the head of the board for educational programs at the Ministry of Education, Alpaslan Durmush announced that next year, part of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution would be excluded from the biology textbooks for grade 9 (where 14-15 year-olds are enrolled).

According to him, the students are "too young to understand the controversial subjects." At the same time, Durmush added that it would be possible to study the disputable sections of the theory after graduation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already approved the proposed changes in the school curriculum, which will be published after the end of Ramadan.

"Turkey will become the second country after Saudi Arabia, which excluded the theory of evolution from the school curriculum," explains Feray Aytekin Aydogan, head of the teachers' union, which unites more than 100,000 teachers of the country.