British Council, Village Institutes and Searching the Ways of the Cultural Diplomacy on the War Circumstances

Abstract

In Turkey after the proclamation of the Republic, a modern state structure by speeding up the revolution in political life was to be formed. With the radical reforms in the first years of the Republic, not only administrative modernization was targeted, but also important steps were taken to transform the social structure. However, unlike the short-term change that is expected in the political sphere, it is not easy to transform the toughened human capital that has been taken over from the Ottoman Empire and has been pushed back into the past. First and foremost, the fact that the aggregated literacy of the urban centers was quite low compared to the general population was a serious problem faced by the Republican administrators. On the other hand, the issue of educating citizens after the adoption of Latin letters in 1928 was one of the main agenda items of the period. As is known, intensive efforts have been made in the first years of the Republic in order to obtain qualified human capital, which is one of the basic dynamics of social development. In this direction, with the Village Institutes Law No. 3803, adopted on 17 April 1940, it was tried to reach the regions lacking school and teacher and answer the educational needs of the provinces. Contrary to the general acceptance of the Village Institutes, this system has not only tried to educate teachers, but also a new human profile who are technicians, health personnel and aware of modern agricultural techniques have been tried to be educated. It is known that the Village Institutes had been in the process of transformation since the late 1940s, it should be taken into consideration that these institutes are a unique example of Anatolian enlightenment. Indeed, Village Institutes, which were subject to correspondence with headquarters in London and the British Council officials who were active in the said period in Turkey, have been found unique and remarkably successful. Moreover, at the initiative of British Council authorities it has been tried to establish cooperation on the basis of education between the Village Institutes and the Young Farmers Club, which carries out similar activities in England. In fact, the British Council authorities have tried to create cooperation with the Village Institutes in order to implement a student exchange program that could be considered radical for that period. Based on the British Council documents examined for this study, it has been attempted to shed light from a different window to the Village Institutes, which were born from the conditions of the day between the reforms initiated in the Republic period.