Many people have had to or chose to leave their residence for various reasons. The reasons for this displacement are sometimes drought, flood, earthquake, etc. There have been human -induced factors such as natural disasters and sometimes war, the influence of various pressure groups, or economic reasons. In recent years, reasons such as war, turmoil, social disorder, and poverty in different countries near our country, especially in Syria and Iraq, have paved the way for people to move from country to country. Turkey, especially its geopolitical position, being a border neighbor with some of these countries, being on the transit route to other countries, belonging to the same religion as those who want to relocate, having a shared past and developing positive diplomatic relations between countries, and not applying a strict visa system. For many reasons, it has often become a preferred destination country. The number of people from different nationalities who migrated to our country due to unrest and other individual reasons and who are in our country under various statuses such as temporary protection, residence permit, international protection, and irregular migration is 5.013.631. As of January 2022, 1.365.884 of these are between the ages of 5 and 17 and of school age. It is known that 935.731 of this number are enrolled in schools. These numbers indicate that there is a significant migrant population and that this population includes those who are not included in the education system as well as those who are included in the education system. Incoming migrants start a new life in our country. In this process, new situations emerge, from education to health, economy to social life. One of these areas is education. In recent years, there have been different developments regarding the education of migrants. Many academic studies have been conducted on this subject. Some of the studies carried out in other dimensions of the field of education are related to religious education. In this study, the education of migrant students in religious high schools was examined within the framework of the opinions of school principals. School principals were thought to display a holistic view of the problems. School principals are knowledgeable about all the problems of the school. In addition, the study focuses on the education of migrant students specifically in imam-hatip high schools. The research study group consists of school principals of 11 schools in Ankara, where the number of migrants is relatively high. School principals have at least five years of administrative experience and at least 15 years of professional experience. They work in Altindag, Kecioren, cankaya and Sincan districts. Eight of the participants are male, and three are female. The study was designed according to the case design, one of the qualitative research approaches. In this context, the education of migrant students was chosen as the case. The data of the research were collected through semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis technique. As a result of the study, it was determined that migrant students' preference for Imam Hatip High Schools has aspects specific to the type of school. These aspects are Arabic, the Holy Quran, etc., having classes, religious and cultural closeness, and the desire to be with other migrants. Within the framework of these findings, it is understood that reasons such as the fact that migrant students come from Muslim countries, their native language is Arabic, the place of religion in their social life, and the desire to be with people in the same situation as them due to being migrants, lead migrants to choose Imam Hatip High School. On the other hand, it is possible to say that these reasons differentiate Imam Hatip High School from other schools as a school type. At this point, although it can be noted that the dimension of desire to be with other migrants is not directly based on an aspect specific to Imam Hatip High School, this dimension is also indirectly related to Imam Hatip High School. Namely, it is understood that the fact that many migrant students prefer Imam Hatip High School due to its unique aspects contributes to the choice of these schools by migrant students who did not decide to choose Imam Hatip High School in the first place. As a result of the study, it is possible to classify the findings of the participating school principals regarding migrant students regarding the education and training processes as follows: language problem: insufficient levels of Turkish, absenteeism or school dropout, cultural differences: communication problems, learning deficiencies in previous stages, distribution of migrant students to classes. Although there are different determinations in the literature regarding the educational processes of migrant students, it would be appropriate to remind that these determinations are based on the opinions of the school principals and as far as possible from the Imam Hatip High School perspective.
