Education in Turkey

Those of you that have read my posts before, I am somewhat oriented towards jobs outside of the USG mission where my husband serves. With that said, my employment prospects are governed by agreements signed by the government of the host country and the government of the United States of America.  In about six months we will be moving to Turkey. The Turkish government agreed to issue work permits for those spouses that wish to work in the education and educational sectors, while permits to work in other sectors are issued on a case by case basis. 

Since education is one of the fields where I can work locally, I decided that I will start with the state of education in Turkey. I would like to start with a few numbers first. Turkey has just under 80 million citizens. Just under 21 million of those citizens are between the ages of 0 and 14 years old. The Turkish government spends about 2.9 percent of its GDP on education. When looking at overall literacy in Turkey it is 94.1 percent. When broken up by gender, the literacy rate of the female population is 90.3 percent (a 2011 estimate), while the literacy rate of males is 97.9 percent. On average, boys will spend 14 years in school, while girls will spend 13 years in school (a 2010 estimate).

Since the early 1970s successive Turkish governments attempted to extend compulsory education for all children from five to eight years. Success came with the passage of a law in 1997 which created a new eight year compulsory education system which included funding for education, additional infrastructure, teachers and administrators, as well as incentives for families to convince them to send their children to school. During the first four years implementation, the government spent approximately $2 billion dollars, enrolled 1.1 million children, and raised enrollment rates from 85.63 to 96.30 percent. Girls in rural areas benefitted especially, enrollment of girls rose by an impressive 160 percent (when looking at areas where schools had the greatest gender disparities) in the first year of the program’s implementation.

To improve access and quality of education, the Turkish government focused on building and rehabilitating school buildings, closing of ailing village schools and implementing bussing and boarding schemes for affected students. Additionally, low income students were provided schoolbooks and meals free of charge. In order to keep kids in school past the 5^th year, the government also moved the primary school diploma award from the 5^th to 8^th grade. Apparently, the majority of Turkish parents believe that receiving a diploma is not just prestigious, but also signals to the market that their child is ready to start working. Therefore, changing qualifications for receiving a diploma from completion of fifth grade to completion of 8^th grade, incentivized parents to keep their kids in school longer. 

The government also moved the minimum apprenticeship age from 12 to 15 years, thus removing the incentive to pull a 12 year old out of school to join an apprenticeship program. While introducing a uniform curriculum, the government cancelled all religious and vocational electives, in favor of a broad based education for all school children, creating a broad and uniform educational program for all children irrespective of where they go to school.

Rapid implementation of the new compulsory education program also attracted private donations in favor of better education for all children. The biggest beneficiaries of the educational reform were children from rural and poor urban areas of Turkey. Within that rural and poor urban group, girls gained the most since the reform provided them with access to additional years of education, which in turn opened doors to more and better paying jobs, higher income levels, and a better life overall. 

On April 17, 2012 the Turkish Parliament, the Grand National Assembly, has passed a new law on compulsory education. I will discuss the new law’s changes and potential impacts on compulsory education in Turkey in my next post.

References:

Dulger, Ilhan “Turkey: Rapid Coverage for Compulsory Education—The 1997 Basic Education Program,” The World Bank, 2004. The paper was presented at the ‘Scaling Up Poverty Reduction: A Global Learning Process and Conference’ Shanghai, May 25–27, 2004 and can be found here: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/12/06/000090341_20041206151725/Rendered/PDF/30801TUR0Basic1ion01see0also0307591.pdf

The World Factbook: Turkey, Central Intelligence Agency, 13 November 2013. Can be found here: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tu.html

“Turkey Demographics Profile 2013” Index Mundi, 21 February 2013. Can be found here: http://www.indexmundi.com/turkey/demographics_profile.html