In support of the International Girls in ICT Day 

Compulsory Peace & ICTs Education From Kindergarten to K-12, and Beyond | Campaign (8th Session)
 #CompulsoryPeaceICTsEdu

2026 Theme for Girls In ICT Day: “AI for Development: Girls Shaping the Digital Future” 

Dedicated to: Pioneer of the GPS Dr. Gladys B. West

Session Theme: ICTs, AI, and Space Tech For Girls | #ICTsForGirls Day 2026

Delivered on April 25, 2026


This speech dedicated to: Atatürk’s Educational model VILLAGE INSTITUTES was a REVOLUTION!
Delivered by Buket Şahin at the #CompulsoryPeaceICTsEdu Campaign #8

Introductory Note: The “Miracle” of the Village Institutes

[LMGlobal.Org] In this inspiring speech, Buket Şahin explores the revolutionary legacy of Turkey’s Village Institutes (Köy Enstitüleri), an educational model (1940–1946) that transformed rural society through technical and classical literacy. Drawing on the personal history of her father, the renowned writer and graduate Osman Şahin, Buket illustrates how these institutes were the “STEM pioneers” of their era.
Buket highlights a fascinating connection: while today’s youth navigate AI and coding, the girls of the Village Institutes were mastering the “hardware” of their time—from motor mechanics to the geometry of land—using Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s own textbooks. By bridging the gap between historical agricultural education and modern space technology, this address reminds us that technical literacy has always been the true language of freedom and the foundation for a more equitable future.

We invite you to read below Buket’s full speech to discover how this “Great Awakening” redefined the role of women in science and leadership long before the digital age.

Atatürk’s Educational model VILLAGE INSTITUTES was a REVOLUTION!

My father was one of the fortunate graduates.
They were operational between 1940 and 1954 in Turkey and were the cornerstones of the rural development project. At the time there weren’t any schools in most of the villages. Village Institutes are established to train teachers for each village and send them back to form new village schools. Based on Dewey’s educational philosophy, educator Tonguç’s aim was to learn a lot from the peasant in order to teach him.  

Like American educational philosopher John Dewey stated, Tonguc`s ultimate aim was of production is not production of goods, but the production of free human beings associated with one another on terms of equality. He dreamed of developing a free and democratic society of real participation.

The revolutionary Köy Enstitüleri (Village Institutes), a rural-development effort taught both trade skills and classical subjects to co-ed classrooms at a time when there was little education in Turkish villages. Had the short-lived project lasted longer, educators say, it could have changed the country’s entire history and solve the Kurdish issue in the southeastern regions via education and providing jobs.

Students built their own schools and farmed their own food. 21 institutes were established in rural areas allover in Turkey to teach not only how to read and write, but also modern agriculture and carpentry to medical knowledge. Graduates were in turn appointed to villages where they would serve as teachers for 20 years for a small pension of 20 liras.
…
As stated by Dewey, the ultimate aim of production is not production of goods, but the production of free human beings associated with one another on terms of equality.

Chomsky describes John Dewey as the leading American social philosopher and think his idea on decent education ought to be creating free, independent, creative human beings.

As a continuation of Turkish Independence war, a revolutionary education seeded by Ataturk.
It was a revolution!

Let me share with you just few lines from  Village Institutes’ Anthem composed by Adnan Saygin to honor Peasants for the importance of Agriculture:

We plow, sow, and harvest, trusting in what lies beyond,
We gathered at the call of Atatürk, the chief farmer,
To the agricultural front for the war with the land.

We are the foundation, the root of national existence,
We are the true owners, the masters of the homeland, the peasants.

Working with sophisticated tools and with the utmost sincerity, with a clear mind, a peaceful heart, and a clear conscience.

We will establish peace and order in our own homeland.

Let the villages see abundance, comfort, and joy.
That invincible Turkish spirit is ours!

…

Despite their short life, they highly increased the number of primary schools in the country. They had strong support from the prime minister İsmet İnönü and mostly established by minister of education Hasan Ali Yücel and the head of primary education İsmail Hakkı Tonguç.

Students built their own buildings and farmed their own food!

Those students – among one of them was my father who graduated from Diyarbakir Dicle Koy Enstitues – were selected among the most successful students in the villages. Their education included both practical (agriculture, construction, arts and crafts etc.) and classical (mathematics, science, literature, history etc.) courses. Their daily routine included morning gymnastics, reading hours and farming. They also had weekly meetings in which students can freely criticize teachers and school administration. In the end of their service there were a total of twenty Village Institutes and one Superior Village Institute that trains teachers for the others.
They had appx 25,000 graduates.

Despite their great benefits, many parts of the society were against these schools. Conservatives opposed the co-ed education in a boarding school. It was very hard to persuade parents at villages to let their daughters to study there. Many kurdish landlords that control villages are disturbed by the highly educated female teachers coming back. They not only formed primary schools but also educated the villagers both intellectually and about agriculture.

April 17th, 2026 marked the 86th anniversary and throughout country many seminars are being held. Educators and linguistics all agree that it was the best educational system as its graduated – barefooted village kids with no clothes whatsoever, became independent, creative teachers and artists with real intellectualism.

My father for example was a goat shepard one of the 13 children of a farmer family from Taurus Mountains who now has 29 published books. Many of his classmates also became either award winning leftist writers or painters.

In a way it was a part of revolutionary practice of NY New School`s founder Dewey’s educational philosophy. Stats indicate that only 4.7% of the general population was able to read according 1927 census and under Mustafa Kemal’s leadership and vision the young republic launched a “literacy mobilisation” programme under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in order to remove this big problem. There was also an educational attempt to transform Turkey into a modern country in all levels of the society. This transformation could only be possible with particular attention to rural areas of Turkey where majority of the population resided during 1930s…

My father, one of the graduates believes it was the continuation of independence war within the borders of country.

…
İsmail Hakkı Tonguç was an Utopian Educator who was undoubtedly one of the most gifted educational thinkers of his generation. As the architect of a short-lived but highly innovative experiment in the early 20th century Turkey, Village Institutes (Köy Enstitüleri), he certainly made an important contribution to educational theory and practice.

My father, Osman Şahin, always described the Village Institutes as a ‘Great Awakening.’ 

For the 3,700 girls who graduated alongside him, this awakening was technical. They were the first to study Cosmography and Geometry using Atatürk’s own textbooks. They learned that a girl with a wrench or a blueprint was just as powerful as a boy with a plow. They didn’t just teach the curriculum; they built the schools they studied in. They proved that technical literacy is the true language of freedom!

In the Village Institutes (Köy Enstitüleri), gender equality was not a passive concept; it was a physical requirement. Out of approximately 17,300 graduates, about 3,700 were female students. These girls were the first “STEM pioneers” of rural Turkey.
The curriculum was split as 50% Culture, 25% Agriculture, and 25% Technical Work. Unlike urban schools of the time where “Technical Work” for girls often meant only sewing, in the Village Institutes, girls participated in the actual construction of their schools. They were taught the foundations of mechanics because the village teacher was expected to maintain the village’s water pumps, repair agricultural tools, and manage the cooperative’s technical needs.
Both teachers and Girls were encouraged to learn to ride bicycles and understand the basic mechanics of motors. This was the “ICT” of the 1940s—the ability to master the machine to bridge the distance between the village and the public.

Atatürk’s Mathematical Legacy was phenomenal.
The Geometry Book, Written by him in 1937 was a revolutionary act of “coding” the Turkish language for science. He replaced over 100 Arabic/Persian terms with modern Turkish ones. By teaching girls this “new language of logic,” he gave them the tools for engineering.

The “Cosmography” classes were indeed a staple of the high school curriculum, designed to give students a scientific understanding of the universe. This was the “Space Tech” of the era, fostering a mindset of global and universal citizenship.

Philosophy was “Education in work, for work, through work.“

25% of the 5-year curriculum was devoted to Technical & Agricultural Arts.

Girls were also trained in carpentry, masonry, and basic motor mechanics alongside boys.
Girls mastered the mechanical “hardware” (motors, pumps, bicycles) to solve rural problems. By using Atatürk’s Geometry book, they learned that language is a tool for logic—the same way girls today use coding languages to build AI.

As a result, these schools had “Miracle” Graduates from a Village Girl to a Global Leader.

Let me give you some extraordinary examples: Pakize Türkoğlu was The Educator-Scholar: A graduate of the Aksu Village Institute. She is perhaps the most famous female voice of the movement. She didn’t just teach; she became a primary historian of the system, winning the Cevdet Kudret Literature Award for her work on the Institutes. She represents the “Information” part of ICT—the power of documenting and sharing knowledge. Dr. Huriye Saraç became the Medical Pioneer: A graduate of the Isparta-Gönen Village Institute. She overcame immense rural barriers to become a medical doctor. Her journey from a village girl learning basic health and mechanics to a licensed physician is the ultimate example of the “Technical Empowerment” Türkan Saylan as The Next Generation Legacy, While not a direct graduate of the 1940s Institutes, she is the symbol of their continued legacy. As a medical doctor and the founder of ÇYDD, she dedicated her life to the “Village Institute” ideal: bringing modern education and science to girls in the most remote parts of Turkey. She often cited the Institutes as the inspiration for her work in mapping the health and education of the “collective body” of the nation.

My father Osman Şahin always highlights that the Institutes didn’t just teach facts; they taught “How to see” and “How to build.”

“The Village Institutes were not just schools; they were a great awakening. They taught the Anatolian child that they were not ‘destiny’s victim,’ but the master of the machine, the soil, and the future!
“As my father, Osman Şahin, beautifully wrote: ‘The Village Institutes were not just schools; they were a great awakening.’ This awakening produced pioneers like Pakize Türkoğlu, who coded our history, and Dr. Huriye Saraç, who turned her technical training into a medical career. They proved that when we invest in a girl’s technical literacy, we aren’t just changing one life—we are changing the ‘geometry’ of an entire nation.

Today, as we look toward Space Tech and AI, let us carry the spirit of Osman Şahin’s ‘miracle’ into the digital age.

The Geometry/Cosmology connection was fascinating because these girls were the first in their families to ever see a diagram of the solar system or a geometric proof. This was their first “interface” with the wider universe.

“Every morning, the students started their day by singing national folk songs and dancing, then eating bread they had cooked themselves,” Dündar wrote. “After 7:30 a.m., they had spare time for reading. They had to read 25 classical books  each year by authors like Dostoyevsky and Goethe.
Then they would attend their classes, of which 50 percent were classical education such as math and history, and the rest were agriculture and crafts.”

My father  who was responsible for the music and sewing studio at his school, said students were expected to be largely self-sufficient, carrying out farming tasks as well as making their own food and clothes.

“In class, we were split into small groups. Each of us would be responsible for a subject and explain it to the rest of the group. There was no hierarchy; we students were treated and respected on same level and had rights to criticize our teachers.”

Graduates were in turn appointed back to their villages to train the villagers everything they learned. 

If Village Institutes were still operating today, Turkiye would surely be a different country!

Village Institutes’ Anthem for Agriculture & Peasants

– Translated from Turkish to English by Buket Şahin

We plow, sow, and harvest, trusting in what lies beyond,
Every gain of the nation goes into the nation’s coffers,
We gathered at the call of Atatürk, the chief farmer,
To the agricultural front for the war with the land.

We are the foundation, the root of national existence,
We are the true owners, the masters of the homeland, the peasants.

What makes a human being human is, first and foremost, this lineage, this land.
Working with the newest tools and with the utmost sincerity,
To once again be an example to the world for the Turk,
With a clear mind, calloused hands, a peaceful heart, and a clear conscience.

We will establish peace and order in our own homeland.
National sovereignty is breaking down the obstacles,
Let the villages see abundance, comfort, and joy.
That invincible Turkish spirit is ours.

We are the foundation, the root of national existence.
We are the true owners, the masters of the homeland, the peasants.