Armenian schools of Istanbul will receive 24,000 Armenian textbooks. The current textbooks have not been revised since the 1930s, Hurriyet Daily News reported. The Education Ministry had to give permission to revise the books of 1934. The schoolchildren also got CDs in English and Turkish. .

According to the newspaper, the biggest problem was translation of books from Turkish into Armenian, as it was difficult to find an interpreter. The Turkish Armenian Minority Schools Teachers Fund, or TEAOV, worked to overcome this problem with the help of 80-year-old retired Armenian teachers.

“We needed to get special permission from the Board of Education and Discipline to print the new books. It continued in the same way for many years. Ankara used to ask for 18 copies of each book with the approval of a certified interpreter and notary to determine whether the book was suitable or not,” TEAOV Chairman Garo Garabetyan told the newspaper.

There are presently 16 Armenian schools functioning in Istanbul for 50, 000 Armenians, only two of them are high schools. There are 300 Armenian teachers.  Since there is no department of Armenian Language and Literature at Turkish universities, teachers teach students what they have learned from their families.