The Process of Modernization in Education: The Search for Synthesis Between East and West (1775–1860)

This study examines the modernization of Ottoman education between 1775–1860 through the lens of the synthesis between Eastern and Western traditions. Driven by continuous military losses and internal conflicts, the reform cycle began with specialized technical schools like the Mühendishanes and Tıbbiye before evolving into a full-scale state endeavor to centralize and institutionalize learning across the empire. The compulsory education decree (1824), the establishment of Rüşdiye schools to provide the state with qualified bureaucrats and the sending of students to Europe in order to train native experts were significant reforms implemented during this period. Instead of evaluating this era with the perspective of the “modern vs. traditional” dichotomy, the work proposes that new educational facilities lived and worked in tandem with the madrasa framework.