in the area of education. By the law for the Education Organization no 789 issued on 22 March 1926 the Ministry of National Education was given responsibility for defining the degrees and equalities of the public and private schools already opened or to be opened by a ministry other than the Ministry of National Education. This Law brought new arrangements such as "no school can be opened in Turkey without the permission and agreement of the Ministry of National Education" or "curricula shall be prepared by the Ministry of National Education". The vocational-technical education institutions formerly directed by local governments were put under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. In 1923–24, there were in Turkey, slightly more than 7,000 secondary school students, almost 3,000 high school students, some 2,000 technical school students and officially 18,000 medrese students of whom 6,000 are claimed to be actual students and the rest who registered to be excluded from military service. The population of Turkey was at that moment some 13–14 million. On 1 November 1928, Law no 1353 introducing a new Latin-based alphabet was accepted. In 1931, the Turkish Association of History, and in 1932, the Turkish Language Association were established to protect Turkish from influences of foreign languages, improve it as science suggests and prevent misuse of the Turkish language. The Republican Turkish authorities initially had twelve education districts headed by people appointed by the ministry, but later gave more power to local authorities, with education directors appointed by provincial authorities. there were 5,100 schools in 1923, this figure increased to 58,800 in 2001 there were 361,500 students in 1923, this number increased to 16 million in 2001 in 1923 12,200 teachers were employed, this number increased to 578,800 in 2001. in 1924 there were 479 medrese (Islamic schools); on average each one of them had approximately 1 or 1.5 hoca (teacher). All medrese were closed down that year by the law of Tevhid-i Tedrisat. In 1938 mobile courses for women were organized in order to support the further education of the rural female population. Youths who finished primary school as well women to the age of 45 were admitted to take part in these courses. A course lastet for 8 months and then the teachers travelled on to a next village. Between 1940 and 1974 almost 305,000 women took part in 13,429 courses. About 240,000 graduated from the courses with