Abstract:

After its foundation in 1923, the Republican People’s Party, RPP for short, (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP in Turkish) ruled Turkey in a single-party system for several decades, except for a short period when a number of attempts to introduce a multi-party system into the country under the guidance of M. Kemal Atatürk were experienced. For this very reason, the RPP was naturally the most important dynamic determining Turkey’s politics during its rule from 1923 till 1950. However, both the social and economic developments in the country and the ones in the world shaped and changed the policy followed by the RPP. The most significant example of such changes was the transition from the single-party rule to a multi-party system in order to adjust to the social and economic circumstances and to the new form of the world politics brought about by the World War II.The RPP underwent a change that was in harmony with the new circumstances after the decision to adopt a multi-party system. The party programme and the resolutions taken during the party conferences in 1946 (an emergency conference) and 1947 clearly showed this dramatic change. This study aims to show the consequences of this change for the education system on the basis of these two conferences held in 1946 and 1947 as the RPP was trying to adapt itself to the new multi-party system in the country

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