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Turkey's main opposition party asked the Constitutional Court on Friday to annul a law that would close all private tutoring centers, also called dershanes, by September 2015.
The closing of the dershanes, which would result in 40 thousand layoffs within the Ministry of Education, is "unconstitutional'," said Akif Hamzacebi, the deputy chief of the parliamentary group of the Republican People's Party, which is known by its Turkish initials, CHP.
The Constitutional Court is the country's highest. Its decisions are final and cannot be amended.
"The proper thing to do is to change the national education system so that our students will not need dershanes," Hamzacebi said. "This is real reform."
Dershanes have been highly popular in Turkey for more than 10 years as an aid for students preparing for high school and university entrance exams.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the state schools would provide extra tutoring to students for free on weekends.
On March 12, Turkey's President Abdullah Gul ratified the law, which will allow dershanes to operate until September 1, 2015, before being converted into conventional private schools by June 2019.
Hamzacebi said the closing of dershanes is a violation the article on freedom of enterprise in the Turkish constitution, which says everyone is free to establish businesses.
A substantial number of dershanes are run by a movement led by Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled Islamic preacher living in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
Gulen is accused by the government of masterminding an illegal group nestled within key institutions of the state, such as the police and the judiciary.
The group -- dubbed as "parallel state" -- is allegedly behind a number of operations that the Turkish government has said have damaged its reputation over the last three years, including an anti-graft probe last December which saw the detention of sons of three former members of Erdogan's Cabinet.
englishnews@aa.comt.tr - Ankara
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