What are the Problems, What Should Be Done?
Today, there are 19 more students studying in primary and secondary schools in Turkey. The number of teachers among children has exceeded one million. On the other hand, official analyzes and statistics reveal that the education system in Turkey faces many problems. On the other hand, international peripheral units such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reveal these differences. Although the Ministry of National Education (MEB), which appears frequently as a minister and policy service, carries out activities and various projects in the field of education, many administrations are united in places where education in Turkey does not cover enough. In other words, the education system in Turkey cannot achieve what is desired.
But why? What are the difficulties in the education system in Turkey? Why can’t these problems be fixed? Gülseven Özkan had an interview with Selçuk Pehlivanoğlu, President of the Turkish Education Association, for Independent Turkish, where she did not invest in the education system and training desk. Let’s look at the details together…
Turkish Education Association President Selçuk Pehlivanoğlu states that he has a “quality” problem in the national education operation.
Of course, there are various factors that cause this quality problem. However, it can be mentioned that there are many problems of education in Turkey, which are faced by those who struggle against different fields. Pehlivanoğlu believes that it can be gathered under some basic headings in the records in the education system.
1. Unsustainable education policies
Selçuk Pehlivanoğlu, President of the Turkish Education Association, believes that unsustainable education policies are an extremely important problem. Pehlivanoğlu explained this situation, “We do not have a national education policy. From the minister to the minister, from the head of the Higher Education Institution (YÖK) to the head of YÖK, the education system does not hold the seam.” he states.
Pehlivanoğlu states that the education meeting should be evaluated in a suprapolitical way and that Turkey urgently needs a national education. For this, it is necessary to abandon continuous education approaches and practices in education, and to implement long-term plans that are not people-indexed, that will not change with people.
2. Exams
According to Pehlivanoğlu, exams are the most important problem in our education system. Because exams are no longer a natural component in the education department! Pehlivanoğlu expresses that the whole education system is imprisoned in a ranking exam, and the understanding of “education for the exam” has taken over the whole system. So much so that many high school students attend open high school “in order not to waste time at school and to better prepare for exams”.
The course of exams, more important than education, causes great damage to the natural education system. For this reason, schools turn into providing the necessary documents for obtaining the institutions at the end of the life skills of their students, as well as for entering the exams, as well as education and training.
3. Inequality of opportunity
Inequality of opportunity in education is among the problems that can be encountered all over the world. However, it has widened the gaps between children who are like Turkey, who are developers and who are seen as non-dominant in the education system of the exams! Selçuk Pehlivanoğlu, President of the Turkish Education Association, gives very impressive views in this regard. Accordingly, the biggest variable on the success of the students in the High School Entrance System (LGS) exams is the socio-economic level of the student and the student.
There is a 120-point difference between students whose parents’ education level is primary school and those whose parents have undergraduate education in terms of those in the second group. It is also reflected in the international research that the students with the highest level of success in Turkey belong to families with high socio-economic status.
4. Quality issues
Pehlivanoğlu underlines that the Turkish education initiative has experienced positive developments in terms of quality recently. For example, saving values recover in areas such as schooling criteria or class sizes. However, according to Pehlivanoğlu, the same cannot be said for the education system. Schools show that one out of every seven children who graduate from primary school demonstrates a simple understanding of genius when reading.
Although mathematics lessons are given 5 times a week in primary and secondary schools, approximately 85,000 students who went to LGS in 2022 could not answer even one mathematics question correctly. In the 2022 Higher Education Institutions Exam (YKS) Basic Proficiency Test (TYT), the number of candidates who were not clear was 97 thousand. Pehlivanoğlu states that those who are excluded from the 12-year compulsory education can only have a learning level as high as 9 years of education.
5. Failure to provide students with basic skills
A substantial portion of those who use primary and secondary education in Turkey do not understand reading a text and have difficulty in doing four operations. In other words, there are serious problems in providing comprehensive basic education.
However, with the achievements in the field of education in recent years, Austria, Singapore, Korea and Japan Almost all international students, such as Pehlivanoğlu states that 37 percent of the students in Turkey do not have basic skills in mathematics, 26 percent in reading and 25 percent in science.
6. Dysfunction of the transition from education to employment in Turkey
The school of students in Turkey… is skeptical of the contribution of education to their future lives. Universities are seen as a way to delay unemployment. Getting them to graduate from university, the salary rate among these graduates is quite high. According to OECD reports, Turkey is the OECD country where secondary and tertiary education graduates have the lowest operating expectations. On the other hand, the employment rate of users aged 24-64, who are not even secondary school graduates, is 50 percent. The employment rate of secondary education graduates is 59 percent, and the employment rate of higher education graduates is 72 percent.
In other words, recording a person’s purpose of finding a job in the future in addition to his educational experiences in Turkey does not increase the value in any way. Parallel to this, 59.9 percent of the population aged 18-24 in Turkey is studying. Only 27.7 percent of this group, which is not included in education, works in a job.
7. The position of teachers in the education system
According to Pehlivanoğlu, the point reached by the education system in Turkey has seriously damaged the reputation of the structures within the system. The value attributed to a teacher today is the correct value with the number of questions in that teacher’s branches in the exams. Growing teaching is a content about transferring knowledge in a mechanical way…
For this reason, teachers have to adopt methods of transferring students from more countries in a shorter time. As a result, students are interrupted in the process of making sense of their data and enjoying their use. Pehlivanoğlu emphasizes that the status and reputation of teaching should be reestablished.
8. Misuse of resources
Pehlivanoğlu believes that there are enough resources to organize the education system in Turkey. In fact, every year, a significant payment from the central budget is allocated for education. But there are huge losses from their exploitation of these productive resources. Here, in order to eliminate the problems in the field of education in the country, these resources must be used efficiently.
9. Changes in teacher training
Selçuk Pehlivanoğlu states that registered education faculties should be reprogrammed in accordance with the conditions of the age. He states that in today’s Turkey, “what kind of teacher training do we hear” is not answered clearly by the administration. This situation constitutes an important obstacle to the formation of an effective teacher training model.
Source: one