Abstract:

Although various studies on foreign schools have been done, the emptiness that appears in literature about the audits of these schools, also addressing Protestant schools, is the main axis of the research, assessing on the basis of the Presidential Ottoman Archive documents. In the Mekatib-i Gayr-i Muslim and Ecnebiye Inspectorate Nizamnamesi, which we publish in our work, the examinations of these schools, teachers, students and books have been detailed. The Ottoman State is trying to make Muslim schools superior to foreign schools, and the Padişah, Istanbul and Ottoman bureaucrats appear to be in an agreement on the supervision of foreign schools and Protestant schools. The licensing and inspection of these schools appears as a fundamental effort in the state’s educational policy regarding foreign schools. However, despite the Padişah’s will, the unlicensed opening of foreign schools and the prohibition of Muslim children, again by the Padişah’s will, continuing to these schools holds a projection of an interesting situation in terms of the educational policies of the Ottoman State. The Ottoman officials are faced with sefaret and consular barriers on inspection, while the staff of these schools, which are an educational station in the center of the "Düvel-i Muazzama" penetration area, can easily move under the protection shadow of the countries they are citizens.

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