ANKARA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Erdogan Tezic, head of the Higher Board of Education (YOK) of Turkey, said moves to amend the constitution should be halted immediately, local media reported on Thursday.

The proposed amendment to the constitution lifted the ban on women wearing headscarves on the campuses of the country's state universities.

Tezic was quoted as saying that the preparation of the constitutional amendments at the initiative of a single party casta shadow on the democratic character of the amendment.

He urged that a new process of amending the constitution, which included all political parties, should be launched after the referendum on October 21.

"The manner and the way that the draft was prepared created worries and insecurities in the nation," said Tezic.

He added that "the proposal to lift the ban on female students wearing the head scarves at universities was also a matter of concern."

In an interview with the British daily Financial Times published on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that the ban on women wearing head scarves on the campuses should be lifted as part of the proposed constitution, saying that the right to higher education cannot be restricted because of what a girl wears.

"I believe it is the first duty of those in politics to solve this problem," Erdogan said.

According to the prime minister, a wide-ranging debate would beheld on the new constitution.

According to the report, several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been involved in preparing alternatives for the constitution and the European Constitution was also taken into consideration during the drafting process.

The cabinet is due to submit the final version of the draft to Erdogan by early next week and a referendum is expected to be held to ratify the constitution.

Turkey has had three constitutions so far and the current constitution, which was written in the early 1980s, had often been criticized as being too restrictive.