İsmail Hakkı Tonguç

İsmail Hakkı Tonguç (1893–1960) was a teacher and director for primary education in the Ministry of National Education of Turkey. He is considered to have deeply influenced the education program during the single party era and the Village Institutes, which trained teachers.

Early life and education Tonguç was born on the 1893 in the village Atmaca in the Ottoman Empire (present-day Sokol in Bulgaria) as the oldest of eight siblings. He attended primary school in his village and high school in Silistre at the Danube river from where he graduated in 1907. In 1914 he was in Istanbul and after several attempts he was able to enter the teachers training school, a boarding school in Kastamonu. After graduation he was spared from military service as a teacher and sent to Germany for further education. He brought in instructors from Germany and focused on learning on the job training. In late 1929 he toured Europe and brought educational materials with him. In the early years of his tenure existed thirteen village schools in which over about 2800 teachers were taught. He wanted the graduates of the institutes to live in the villages and that through them the village would be transformed into a developed village. All the peasants where Village Institutes were located, had to devote twenty days a year to the service of the Village Institute. This by some Turkish intellectuals called "coerced" labor was influenced by the practices in Bulgaria and Nazi Germany where the population had to work between four and eight months for the national Government. He stayed in his office until 1946.

In September 1946, he appointed to the Board of Education following which he wrote two books on education and revised one he had written before. In 1950 he was called to the Ministry of Education following which he demanded his retirement which was granted in 1954. He died on 24 June 1960.

Personal life He was married to Nafia Kemal, a student of his. He was named İsmail by his parents and was added the name Hakki by his teacher in 1916. In 1934, as a result of the surname law, he was given his surname Tonguç.