Italian teachers at an Italian high school in Istanbul earn salaries that are six times bigger than the salaries of their Turkish colleagues at the institution, according to local media reports.
Liceo Italiano di Istanbul, or Ozel Italyan Lisesi, founded as far back as 1861 during the Ottoman era, is owned by the Italian government. It is among the schools for non-Muslim minorities in the country that were given permission by European governments to open during the 19th century.
60,000 lira versus 350,000 lira
Liceo Italiano di Istanbul pays its Turkish teachers monthly salaries of around Turkish lira (TRY) 60,000 ($1,405). However, the Italian teachers receive around TRY 350,000.
The school’s management offered a 15% salary hike for 2026, together with no hike for 2027, during collective labour agreement talks with the teachers’ syndicate.
Turkish teachers at the school have been holding protests. On December 10, they called a press conference to announce that they were initiating a strike process.
Colonial law
The Turkish teachers at the school work according to a lower status, they stated in a press release, adding: “Is the reason for this discrimination the fact that the teachers are Turkish?”
The situation might be said to smack of colonial law.
Jarring double standards in teaching loads and working conditions are also evident, Selahattin Karakurt, head of a local labour union present at the school, said.
“A Turkish teacher who fills in for an Italian colleague is deprived of any additional payment. However, an Italian teacher doing the same job receives compensation for their work,” he said.
“We want to work without the constant threat of being fired and without worrying about the future,” Karakurt also said.
It is discriminatory to deny the union rights of Turkish teachers who are union members, according to Karakurt. Only the needs of the Italian teachers are taken into account when preparing the weekly lesson schedule, he added.
“We want an end to the pressure exerted on us by the school administration, including threats of dismissal, simply because we are union members and are fighting for our rights,” the union leader remarked.
‘Treat us like human beings’
“We are here to be treated like human beings, for workplace tranquility and the protection of our dignity,” Ilhan Gulek, a history teacher at the school, said during the press call.
The Turkish teachers have worked for three years with no salary hike, yet the economic crisis felt in Turkey had been at its most devastating, he added.
“Our lessons are 50 minutes long, and our breaks are five minutes. It’s impossible to eat properly or rest in the 30 minutes allocated for lunch,” Gulek also complained.
“The duty of supervision [of the students], which is one of the primary responsibilities of a teacher, is only performed by Turkish teachers at our school. It becomes even more difficult to cope with this pace [in the schedule] on the days we are on supervision duty,” he added.
The Turkish teachers have demanded that the lessons should be 40 minutes long, with breaks set at 10 minutes, in common with schools across Turkey.
The school administration has rejected their requests, saying: “In Italy, lessons are 60 minutes long. If we reduce them to 40 minutes, Italian teachers will suffer financial losses.”
When Turkish teachers asked whether their efforts and contributions to the friendship between the two countries meant nothing, the Italian director of the school reportedly told them: “You are just numbers to Italy.”
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