Women's Education

Women's Education in Ottoman Empire from 1700 to 1922

The Turkish education system can be divided into two periods:
1- From the acceptance of Islam up until the foundation of the Turkish public; religion and sultanate system
2- From the Turkish Republic till now; democratic and secular.




During the first period, educational institutions aimed at 20% of the population including

a) The Military Class
b) The Religious Scholars Class
c) Some merchants and artisans.



The most important achievements in primary education
- Inception of compulsory education dating from 1824
- Transition to a modern education with Reorganization (1839-Tanzimat), especially with the recommendation by circulars from 1847 and 1869 that everybody- girl or boy, in villages or towns should attend primary school. The Ministry of National Education was established in 1857.














Figure 1 Mahmud II, the road towards modernity was charted by by Sultan Selim III and Mahmud II.

- During the Second Constitutional Monarchy Period (1908) the law act made education compulsory and attempted to establish a union between education and positivism.

Women were educated in these schools:

• Primary School (Sibyan mektebi); for centuries primary school education had been conducted in the Ottoman Empire. Co-educational schools were segregated by gender in 1858.


• Women’s middle school (Inas rushdies)- 1858, Istanbul.The programme for the courses to be taught included: knowledge of religion, Ottoman grammar, punctuation and structure, Arabic and Persian grammar, domestic sciences, sewing , drawing, Ottoman history, general history and geography.


• High schools (Young women’s idadis)- The first one was opened on March 13 1880, during the period of autocracy in the Ottoman Empire. It closed two years later. The next was opened in 1911in accordance with European school system and regulations. The curriculum offered French, English, German, music and handicraft, domestic work training and Turkish.


• Women’s university (Inas Daŕ ül Fünun). The first women’s university was opened in Istanbul in 1914. Offered courses: mathematics, literature, natural sciences. In 1917 they were allowed to attend the medical, pharmaceutical and chemistry departments.
  Women’s Teacher Training College. Established in 1870 in the vicinity of Ayasofia with two teachers to train women to fill teaching positions.

Schools for minorities and the education of foreign women

Non-Muslim citizens in the Ottoman Empire were given the right to open theri own schools in 1453. they were orginzed in the form of semi-autonomous institutions which, in some ways, would replace the Sultan's authority. before the Tanzimat period, a number of minority and foreign young women's schools had been opened in the Ottoman Empire; e.g. nine French schools, the Avnavutkoy Women's American College in 1871.