Construction for the fortress-schools started after the curfews in Şırnak’s Cizre district, and this year the schools will be used for education despite their shortcomings. The fortress-schools are built outside the city center and are going to be the epicenter of assimilation policies that have been accelerating in the last two years.

SCHOOLS WILL BE USED FOR OPERATIONS WHEN NECESSARY

7 high schools built in the Kuştepe village on a high location overlooking the city center are dubbed fortress-schools due to their physical characteristics. The schools are built with concrete shear walls and mimic the architecture of the outposts and fortress-outposts in the region. The schools overlook the whole region, and differing from the previous TOKİ-built schools, have a watchtower on the roofs like the fortress-outposts have. The schools look like fortress-outposts and are to be turned over to security forces when the need arises, like other schools were in the previous curfews.

ANTI-TERROR UNITS WILL BE STATIONED IN THE SCHOOLS

Meanwhile, the students enrolled in the fortress-schools will pass through the police checkpoint in the city entrance every day. A police outpost is under construction across from the area where the fortress-schools are being built and a large number of police will be stationed there for “security”. The police officers to be stationed in the watchtowers and in rooms close to the students’ classrooms will be from the Anti-terror unit. The Anti-terror police being stationed in schools in the city had been on the public agenda last year.

REPLACING THE RBES

The fortress-schools will have full day education. The students will be picked up with shuttles in the morning and will be in the school until the evening. This will keep the children away from the city. Additional dormitories are being built in the schools, removed from the neighborhoods where people speak their mother tongue, so students can stay there during the night as well.

The dormitories will house students from villages for the most part, and the schools are expected to take over the assimilation policies implemented by the RBES (Regional Boarding Elementary Schools) in the region.

ISSUES OF WATER AND SHUTTLE

Meanwhile, the area the new schools are being built in isn’t connected to the water grid, so the students’ water needs will be met by the fire brigade. On top of the water issue, the monthly shuttle fees will be problematic for the poorer families. In previous years, many students without sufficient funds used to walk to school.