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Antalya High School, founded in 1898, continues its educational activities in historic, approximately 170-year-old buildings that have witnessed an educational history stretching from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic.
Founded by Sultan Abdulhamid II as the "Five-Grade Liva Idadisi," a provincial secondary school in Kaleici, Antalya's old town, the school was renamed "Antalya Sultanisi," meaning Antalya Imperial High School, in 1916.
After the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkiye, it moved into two mid-1850s mansions on Ataturk Street that had belonged to Greek families, taking its current name in 1933.
An Education Museum inside the building displays documents from the 1920s and 1930s, including a hand-signed instruction by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, alongside items used by students and teachers nearly a century ago. Among the school's most prominent alumni are writer and poet Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, former Deputy prime minister Deniz Baykal, and politician Menderes Mehmet Turel.
School Principal Ali Yerli said the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has declared the historic buildings a first-degree protected site, adding that the school currently serves 720 students with a staff of 58 teachers.
Yerli noted that the museum also preserves a signed inspection report by Hasan Ali Yucel, one of the nation's early ministers of national education.
"We keep many materials in our museum to raise a generation that is faithful to its traditions and respectful of values, without losing touch with its roots as we move toward the future," Yerli said.
Yerli said a large share of that era’s high school graduates in Antalya came from the school. “Antalya High School continues its educational life as a cultural and historical heritage of Antalya,” he said, adding that graduates live in solidarity under the Antalya High School Alumni Association and the alumni foundation.
Literature teacher Zeyyat Sahin, who has worked at the school for 20 years, said people in Antalya do not say Antalya High School but simply “the high school.”
“Antalya High School also serves as a bridge between the city’s past and future,” he said.
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