He is considered to have deeply influenced the education program during the single party era and the Village Institutes, which trained teachers.
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.
Arriving in Istanbul in 1916, he learned that the name Hakki was added to his identity card which was a common practice to differentiate the students.
[3] When the allied powers attempted the conquer Eskisehir, Tonguç moved to Ankara.
[6] In the early years of his tenure existed thirteen village schools in which over about 2800 teachers were taught.
[9] 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.
[12] After his retirement he travelled through Europe for a family visit to his son in Germany and to study the pedagogic ideas from Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.