Online Kurdish classes in Turkey receive over 1,000 applications in 24 hrs

Ferhat Yaşar / DUVAR

A center for Kurdish language and culture research, the Kurdish Institute of Istanbul, received some 1,048 applications within 24 hours of announcing that they would be opening up new spots for their online classes in the Kurmancî and Kurmanckî dialects of Kurdish.

“Good News! We’re expanding our ongoing online classes to make them more widely accessible. Anyone who wants to speak and write in Kurdish can enroll,” read an April 5 tweet by the institute’s official website. 

Müjde!

Kürt Araştırmaları Derneği online Kürtçe derslerine başlıyor.

Halihazırda online devam eden derslerimizi herkes için ulaşılabilir bir hale getirip yeni sınıflar açıyoruz. Kürtçe okuyup yazmak isteyen herkes aşağıda yer alan formu doldurarak kaydını gerçekleştirebilir! pic.twitter.com/bgNtKd53mS

— Enstîtuya Kurdî (Komeleya Lêkolînên Kurdî) (@EnstituyaKurdi) April 5, 2020

By 2 p.m. the next day, April 6, the institute had to close applications due to overwhelming demand, Co-Chair Eyyüp Subaşı said.

“We had to stop taking applications but we will be reopening them in the coming days. We’ll have to come up with a formula,” Subaşı said.

So far, the institute will open 27 new classes of about 40 students each for the online courses that will start April 15.

“Each student will join in on one session every week, but we’ll be holding classes every day of the week,” Subaşı noted, adding that some 30 instructors will be teaching.

The institute will resume taking applications after a period, Subaşı added.

Starting April 15, classes will be held each day of the week on the video conference call application Zoom, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.