Students refuse to enter schools, demanding right to learn in their language

Hundreds of students in the city of Hasaka refused to enter their schools today in protest against the Ministry of Education's decision to allocate only three weekly class periods for Kurdish language instruction.

ANHA agency observed student protests and their refusal to begin the new 2026–2027 academic year—which launched today—at locations such as the (That Al-Nitaqayn) School in the Al-Nasirah neighborhood. There, students and teachers voiced their opposition to the decision, demanding official recognition of the Kurdish language and guarantees for students' rights to learn it as their mother tongue.

Student Nourjan Mohammed said: "We demand our right to learn in the Kurdish language; we cannot learn in Arabic, and the three classes allocated for Kurdish are not enough for us."

For his part, student Ibrahim Amer said: "I will not attend school until the issue of the Kurdish language is resolved. Why shouldn't we learn in it, given that it is our mother tongue? Three classes will not suffice; if the Kurdish language is not recognized in the constitution, we will not go to school."

For her part, student Zilan Abdulaziz Mohammed said: "We want to speak our mother tongue; three classes are not enough for us. We want to learn English and Arabic, but our primary demand is for our language to be recognized and for us to be able to speak it within schools."

For her part, teacher Thuraya Darwish stated that the teaching staff has dedicated significant effort over the past 14 years to educating students, noting that throughout this period, instruction was based on the students' mother tongue.

She added, "Why shouldn't learning and teaching take place in the mother tongue? For 14 years, students did not study in Arabic; instead, their education was based on their mother tongue, Kurdish. How, then, can learning in Arabic be imposed on them today? And how will they adapt to that?"

Thuraya emphasized that three weekly Kurdish language classes "would not be sufficient for the students," expressing her hope that Kurdish language instruction would continue in schools. She stated, "Just as the Arab community wishes to learn in its own language, we, too, as Kurds, want to learn in our Kurdish language."

Sh-S

ANHA