Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, kuruluşuyla birlikte çökmüş bir İmparatorluğun harabelerini miras olarak devralmıştı. Cumhuriyet değerlerinin benimsenmesi, toplumsal, kültürel ve iktisadi gelişimin sağlanması ve halkın uygarlık düzeyine erişmesi hedefi, köye ve köylüye yönelik eğitim politikalarına verilen önemin artmasını sağladı. Çünkü halkın çok büyük bir kısmı köylerde yaşamakla birlikte buralarda okuma yazma oranı çok düşüktü. Temel geçim kaynağı olan tarımsal üretim ise ilkel yöntemlerle yapılıyordu ve çiftçi emeğinin ürününü verimli hale getirecek bilgi ve birikimden yoksundu. Köyün ve köylünün kalkınmasına yönelik eğitim faaliyetleri Köy Muallim Mekteplerinin açılması, Köy İşleri Komisyonu’nun toplanması, Halkevlerinin, Eğitmen Kurslarının açılması ve nihayet 1937-38’de açılmaya başlanan Köy Öğretmen Okullarının 1940’da Köy Enstitüleri’ne dönüşmesiyle sonuçlandı. 1945-46 öğretim yılına gelindiğinde ülke çapında açılan köy enstitülerinin sayısı 21’e ulaşmıştı. Bu enstitülerden biri de Aksu Köy Enstitüsüydü. Bu çalışmada “Karanlık Sokağı Aydınlatan” Aksu Köy Enstitüsü’nün tanıtılması amaçlanmıştır. Çalışmada yazılı kaynaklardan elde edilen verilere ek olarak Aksu Köy Enstitüsü 1948 mezunu bir (Melek Doruk Atçakarlar), 1946 mezunu ve şu anda hayatta olmayan iki (Mustafa Avcı ve İbrahim Güldal) öğretmen ile yapılmış görüşmelerden elde edilen verilerle, enstitü yaşamının çeşitli boyutlarına kişisel örnekler sunularak ışık tutulması planlanmıştır.

By its establishment, Turkish Republic took over the ruins of a collapsed empire as heritage. The aim of the adoption of Republican values, ensuring social, cultural and economic development led to an increased importance given to educational policies for villages and villagers. Besides the majority of the people were living in villages, the rate of literacy was low there. Agricultural production as the main livelihood was done using primitive methods and farmers lacked information and knowledge to make their product of labor efficient. Training activities for the development of the village and the villagers resulted in opening Village Teacher Schools (Köy Muallim Mektepleri), aggregation of Village Affairs Committee, Foundation of People’s Houses, Village Educator Courses, and finally transforming Village Teacher Schools (Köy Öğretmen Okulları) which began to be opened in 1937-38, to Village Institutes in 1940. In 1945-46 academic year the number of nationwide village institutes opened had reached 21. One of these institutes was Aksu Village Institute. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate various dimensions of generally all village institutes and particularly Aksu Village Institute like establishment phase, student admission to school, difficulties experienced in the institutes, educational activities, personal relationships and daily life, health conditions, the relationship with villages around the institute and other village institutions, requirements after graduation, closure process of institutes. In the study the information was obtained from the witnesses in addition to first and second hand-written sources. Applying to personal memories is frequent in the studies about village institutes. Indeed in historical researches, it is a common situation to apply witnesses in addition to written sources to enlighten the historical facts. Thus, in this study personal examples about various dimensions of the village institutes were presented by the data obtained from interviews with three retired teachers graduated from Aksu Village Institute in addition to the written sources. Document analyze method was used to analyze written sources and content analyze method was used to analyze interview data. After the approval of Village Institutes Law on 17th April 1940, Aksu Village Institute was founded in the place called “Dark Street” next to the ruins of Perge, 16 kilometers east of Antalya province. Educational activities began in 8 barracks which were made at first by a team from Eskişehir Çifteler Village Institute. Then the main buildings were made by the teachers and students. According to the law, every village institute could admit students only from the villages that it was responsible for. So Aksu Village Institute admitted students from the villages of Antalya, Muğla and Mersin. Because of the financial problems, students even came to school difficultly. Whereas the number of students remained below the quota in early years, in the following years, the number of students applied and were accepted to the school has increased. Between 1940-1953 (except 1942-1943 academic year) 1062 students were enrolled in the Aksu Village Institute. 373 of these students left school before completing their education because of death, disease, truancy, flunk, expulsion and etc. and 749 of them graduated. During this period, because of the World War II, insufficient portion of the country’s budget was allocated to the education. Therefore in the early years there had been problems in meeting some of the needs of students in Aksu as in other institutes. But in the following years these problems were solved. For example at the beginning bread and some other foods were inadequate. But then a bakery was built in Aksu Village Institute. Moreover the institute began to produce its own food by agricultural activities. The first curriculum of the village institute was established in 1943. During the 5 years of this education, students atten