ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how non-Muslim institutional life in Turkey has been characterised by a series of legal inconsistencies and administrative loopholes within the legal and administrative framework of the republic of which non-Muslims are an integral part. It examines the state law in this area and the communal school network before moving on to an investigation of contradictions, ambiguities and conflicts in minority education from the late Ottoman Empire to present-day Turkey. The Greek school system that exists under the Turkish Republic today is the creation of the late Ottoman period: all Greek schools of Turkey were established in the 19th or early 20th centuries. In 1869, the Ottoman state issued its first modern code of education, which was to constitute the main legal framework of the educational system under the Republic as well. In 1923, the newly established Republic designated its non-Muslim citizens as legal minorities.
