Despite many applications from organisations belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace to establish bilingual kindergartens within the scope of the special educational system granted to the Turkish community and to establish other private bilingual kindergartens in the region, the Greek government rejects proposals to open Turkish-Greek bilingual kindergartens in the existing regions. This issue was also included in the 2008 report of former UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues Ms. Gay McDougall and in the reports of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) of the Council of Europe in 2015. Despite recommendations not to jeopardise children’s right to education and to open Turkish kindergartens that will enable Turkish children to learn both Turkish and Greek better from an early age, the demand has not yet been met since 2006. Finally, a person belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace submitted a petition to the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament on this issue specifically, voicing the difficulties that the Turkish children face in public kindergartens where Greek education is provided at a meeting of the relevant EP Committee, indicating that it is unequal not to allow the opening of bilingual kindergartens in the Turkish school system. In addition, in July 2023, MEPs drew attention to this issue by presenting a written question on it. However, in response to the petition and the written question requesting an opinion from the European Commission, it was merely stated that education is within the competence of the Member States. Primary schools belong to our community, but their numbers are rapidly decreasing. In 2010, a ministerial decision was issued allowing the merging of schools with a small number of students across the country, and the activities of a primary school with fewer than nine students were suspended and closed within two years. This practice has become a systematic means of discrimination against the Turkish community in Western Thrace. In 2008, there were 194 minority primary schools in Western Thrace. This number decreased to 188 in 2011, to 170 in 2014, to 164 in 2015, to 133 in 2016, to 130 in 2017, to 128 in 2018, to 123 in 2019 and to 115 in 2020, and in 2021 it decreased to 103 and to 99 in 2022. Under the decision taken by the Ministry of National Education of Greece in August 2023, Turkish primary schools in seven villages in Rodopi and two villages in Xanthi were closed. In contrast, the rights and status of the Greek community in Türkiye which have been guaranteed by the same treaty as for the Turkish community in Western Thrace, is backed by the state although its population has decreased. Today, 21 children are studying in the Greek primary school in Gökçeada, Türkiye, which was opened with only 4 children in 2013, and there are 35 students in the secondary school opened in 2015. On the other hand, while the number of primary schools in Western Thrace was 231 in 1995, the number of primary schools has decreased to 90 in the last 28 years, with the closure of 9 primary schools in the 2023-24 school year. Access to quality education is also problematic at the secondary school level. The number of Turkish secondary and high schools in Western Thrace is insufficient. Indeed, when taken as comparative data, the number of public secondary schools in the prefecture of Xanthi is 21, in the prefecture of Rodopi it is 14, and 27 in the prefecture of Evros, while the number of secondary and high schools belonging to the Turkish community in Western Thrace is 1 in Xanthi, 1 in Rodopi and zero in Evros. The recent issues in accessing equal education at Xanthi Minority Secondary and High School reveal the unequal and discriminatory treatment faced by the Turkish community in Western Thrace by ignoring their needs in education. Due to the increase in the number of students in the 2019-2020 school year, a system of double-shift schooling is applied in the morning and afternoon classes at the Xanthi Minority Secondary and High 2