Libya awaits Turkey's assistance in education

TRIPOLI (A.A) - December 7, 2011 - The Libyan government is waiting for Turkey's assistance in the field of education after the Gadhafi regime has ended. In an exclusive interview with the AA, Libyan Minister of Education Dr. Suleiman Sahili said that they would give high importance to education in the post-Gadhafi era. As in many areas, we await Turkey's assistance in education, Dr. Sahili said. During the 42 years of Gadhafi regime, education was ignored. The Gadhafi regime was afraid of educated individuals. As such, the Gadhafi regime preferred to have Libyans uneducated. By keeping people ignorant, Gadhafi tried to protect his regime, Dr. Sahili said. During the Gadhafi era, the curriculum in school used to change often. When you look at the history books of the Gadhafi era, you may think that Gadhafi had ruled since the first day of the earth. The Libyan history was completely based on Gadhafi, Dr. Sahili noted. Gadhafi added pages into history books that were against the Ottomans and Turkey. History books of the Gadhafi era portrayed the Ottomans as occupiers and brutal rulers. Libyans in the last century grew with anti-Turkish sentiments, Dr. Sahili underlined. We await Turkey's support in order to write new history books. The new books will be far away from an ideology and reflect only the truth, Dr. Sahili stressed. We await Turkey's support for the training of Libyan teachers, Dr. Sahili said. "My father served as the minister of economy prior to the Gadhafi regime. My father taught us love for the Ottomans. We want to see Turkey on our soil once more," Dr. Sahili said. There are 1.3 million students in Libya. It was the students that got killed most during the Gadhafi era. We have found mass graves of university students who have been missing for long years, Dr. Sahili added.