A STUDY ON THE VIEWS OF PRESCHOOL EDUCATION TEACHERS ABOUT SYRIAN IMMIGRANT CHILDREN IN THEIR CLASSES (The Case of The Hatay Province)

Experiencing the phenomenon of immigration heavily, Turkey is trying to provide and maintain immigrants’ living standards. Providing accommodation, meeting their nutritional needs, maintaining their health and educating them is a humanitarian, cultural and international duty. Though education is not generally seen as a priority, supporting the improvement of this population, who is not known when they will return to their countries, enabling them to live in harmony with the country where they stay as guests, and raising individuals who will take charge in the development of their country upon their return is indeed as important as other needs. Immigrants coming from different countries have been settled, apart from camps, in many locations across Turkey and efforts are being made to determine their needs and to support them. The largest immigrant population in recent years has come from Syria. Although there were children among the immigrants coming from Syria, there are now also children who were born in Turkey when immigrants married here. Meeting the educational needs of these children, who reside in different cities, is a right protected by international laws and necessary measures need to be taken by countries that are signatories to the International Declaration of Children’s Rights. In order to prevent immigrant children outside of camps from being segregated from local people, they are provided with mixed education at different levels in different classrooms just like Turkish children. It is now known that preschool education is the keystone to becoming individuals; so immigrant children are not denied this opportunity and all immigrant children meeting the age requirement is registered at a Preschool Education institution. Cultural and emotional differences are thought to lead to educational challenges. To what extent the precautions that were taken and the applications conducted make a contribution constitutes the purpose of this study. The findings of the study will serve as suggestions in organizing educational policies aimed at immigrant children. The sample of the study includes a preschool teacher from whom information has been obtained about the situation and who is employed at a school in the province of Hatay, a border city that has received a huge influx of immigrants, and 18 Preschool Education teachers in the province of Hatay again who have Syrian immigrant children in their classes and who were selected through the snowball sampling method. The study was conducted using a qualitative research model which is used to determine the state of affairs. An interview form was prepared by the researchers as the data collection tool by which information was intended to be obtained about how the teachers communicated with the Syrian immigrants, about challenges in education and about suggestions in this regard. The results of the findings reached through the analysis of the data obtained are as follows: It was found that teachers who

Keywords

Preschool Education, Child, Immigration, Immigrant Children, Syrian Immigrants, Preschool Teacher