Educational reform in Turkey

After the dissolution of the USSR (25 December 1991), Turkish countries gain their liberty and constitued their education constitutions. The problem statement of this study can be expressed as: " When the compulsory education and the structures of primary education are compared what are the similarities and the differences in Turkey and in these 4 Turkish countries (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyryzgstan, Uzbekistan)? " Within the framework of a 12 year compulsory education 4 years, of primary, 8 years of seondary education (4 years of middle school (college) and 4 years of high school) were determined in Turkey. But in these 4 Turkish countries the compulsory education cover the primary and the secondary levels and it takes 11 years. When the the duration of primary education change in 3-4 years, it takes 4 years in Azebaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. Also, within this study, the structures of primary education systems in Turkey and in these 4 Turkish countries will analyze comparatively.

Although the effectiveness of a school is mostly evaluated with the students' achievement in core lessons in national or international exams, " School Effectiveness " is a multifaceted term which includes the qualities of different parties., School Effectiveness refers to the level of goal attainment of a school and it is one of the major factors affecting students' success. High expectations from students, educational leadership, monitoring progress, parental involvement, staff professional development, positive classroom climate, and high level of school resources are the main factors creating effective schools. In this respect, this study initially aimed at designing a Likert type School Effectiveness Scale to define the qualities of effective schools, and secondly analyzing the result according to the socioeconomic status. The study was conducted in 9 state secondary schools, 5 located in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods and 4 in high socioeconomic status neighborhoods. 388 administrators and teachers participated in the study. The reliability analyses revealed that Cronbach's Alpha coefficient of the scale is 0.962, and the scale consists of 5 factors. These factors explain the school effectiveness phenomenon up to 69.60%. The discussion of these findings gives better insight about the factors which create effective schools. INTRODUCTION School is basically defined as a place where learning occurs; however, it is a more complicated organization which has economic, political, cultural, and social dimensions. Schools, in general terms, aim at developing socially accepted behaviors on individuals, and with this function, they are the institutions which support nations to reach their wide-ranging goals. The major functions of schools are providing individuals with skill and knowledge acquisition, raising individuals to fulfill the social needs, categorizing these individuals by determining their skills, socializing them, and developing individual creativity and positive attitudes (Averch et.al., 1974). Due to the rapid changing conjuncture in the world and Turkey, schools have to keep up with the change and increase their effectiveness to continue their existence. Therefore, the foremost objective of schools is to improve their quality. Since schools differ greatly in achieving the aforementioned functions, their effectiveness should be determined, comparisons should be made, and data should be collected to plan their improvement. The initiations to ensure these practices have been the reason of school effectiveness research.

Mevlana International Journal of Education, 2013

In this study, the question "According to PISA 2009 data, what is the situation of the school policies and practices at upper secondary schools in Turkey?" was answered. Study group included 150 principals at upper secondary schools, which were taken into PISA 2009 Turkey sample. The data related to school policies and practices used in this study were derived from OECD database of which were the responses of school principals to the questions placed in the part F of the PISA 2009 school questionnaire. The dimensions of study are as follows: The considered factors in admitting students to school; grouping students; the reasons for transferring students; using assessment of student data in declaration/transparency and monitoring-developing; the methods for monitoring the practice of teachers; using assessment of student data in evaluation of teachers' and principal's performance. Using data from the PISA 2009, the findings suggest that equity is not taken sufficiently into account for school policies and practices, and administrative accountability is used predominantly rather than professional accountability.

This introduction seeks to provide a contextual framework for understanding recent developments in the Turkish education system. For this purpose, it reviews some major policy issues such as neo-liberal education reforms and increasing religiosity. Then, the article introduces the various contributions included in this special issue of Comparative Education, and highlights some of the emerging issues and patterns.

Bartın University Journal of Faculty of Education, 2021

The purpose of the study was to investigate the curriculum development process in Singapore and Turkey comparatively regarding administrative structure and educational reforms. As a qualitative descriptive research, this comparative study is expected to contribute to evaluation of possible strengths and weaknesses of the two countries in curriculum development and support the adoption of effective policies and practices by policymakers. Considering the purpose of the study, the data were collected through document analysis. Content analysis was utilized to analyze qualitative data gathered from the official documents and research reports. Results revealed similarities and differences in terms of centralized approach, administrative units and their missions in Singapore and Turkey with respect to administrative structure of curriculum development. Regarding the reflections of educational reforms on curriculum development process and policies, it was found that although the educational reforms were implemented for similar purposes in the two countries, the way of implementation and sustainability demonstrated considerable differences in terms of conditions such as planning, delivery, timing and monitoring. It is recommended that regulations should be made in Turkey such as establishing research mechanisms to systematically study on the integration of curriculum policy and practice to fill in the gap between them. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Singapur ve Türkiye'deki program geliştirme süreçlerini yönetsel yapı ve eğitim reformları bağlamında karşılaştırarak incelemektir. Betimsel nitelik taşıyan bu nitel karşılaştırmalı eğitim çalışmasının program geliştirme açısından iki ülkenin olası güçlü ve zayıf yönlerini değerlendirme boyutunda alana katkı sağlaması beklenmektedir. Çalışmanın verileri dokuman incelemesi yoluyla toplanmıştır. Resmi belge ve araştırma raporlarından elde edilen verilerin analizinde içerik analizinden yararlanılmıştır. Çalışmadan elde edilen bulgular program geliştirmede yönetsel yapı açısından Singapur ve Türkiye'nin merkeziyetçi yapı, yönetsel birimler ve görevleri bağlamında benzerlik ve farklılıklarını olduğunu göstermektedir. Eğitim reformlarının program geliştirme uygulamalarına yansımaları bakımından ise iki ülkede de eğitim reformlarının benzer amaçlara hizmet etmesine rağmen reformların uygulanışı ve sürdürülebilirliğinin planlama, zamanlama ve izleme gibi konularda farklılıklar gösterdiği görülmektedir. Bu bağlamda Türkiye'de politika ve uygulama bütünlüğünü sistematik olarak inceleyecek araştırma mekanizmalarının kurulması gibi düzenlemelerin yapılması önerilmiştir. Anahtar kelimeler: Eğitim reformları, karşılaştırmalı eğitim, program geliştirme.

To adapt to the advances of the era, the economic, technological, social and cultural competition continues growing rapidly between the world countries. The main way to adapt this competition is to improve the quality of human edification, in the other words to change education system. As one of the developing Asian countries in the world, Turkey wants to reach advanced development like other powerful countries in the world. So Turkey is one of the sample countries in the world that changes the education system in recent days. The aim of this research is to examine the opinions of school managers with respect to their views on the practical implications of the legal changes to the 4+4+4 new education system in Turkey. Qualitative methods were used for this phenomenon study and the participants were 34 school managers from several private and official institutions in Kirklareli city in Turkey. School managers were taken from utilizing eight semi-structured open-ended questions according to law which is about new education system to get their experiences. Data were collected in writing in fifty minutes and were given personal numbers. Data were analyzed via NVivo 10 and were created categories and themes. Findings were presented with tables and mind maps. The findings were coded into themes and presented with mind maps and tables. The results show that managers were attempting to implement the 4+4+4 new education system in Turkey accordance with the legal provisions. There are, however, some problems in doing so and the analysis of the issues they raised, has resulted in a number of recommendations.

Being a convenient technique in analyzing and evaluating educational policies of the states, education production functions have been approved and used by many scholars. Therefore, this study engages with that technique by referring to the existing literature in order to identify the reasons behind the high variance among provinces of Turkey, in student achievements. Primary level education is the main concern of this paper. An econometric analysis is applied by using data of identified variables, in relation to the student achievements. To provide a base for this application, the structure of Turkish education system is explained. In addition, a comparison of the education system of Turkey with other selected countries is provided. According to the results of the econometric analysis, this study finds out that multiple variables have been responsible for the variance in student achievement among provinces in Turkey. School enrollment rate, educational status of the families, class size, student teacher ratio, and variable regarding the Kurdish population have all influenced student achievement at primary level education. Nevertheless, variables on socioeconomic status of the provinces and school resources including class size and student teacher ratio have been more influential. On the other hand, findings on public expenditure variable have led to an important conclusion. This study shows that the centralized educational policy of Turkey has not responded to the high variance problem in student achievement. In this respect, alternative education systems including a decentralized structure should be taken into consideration to provide a more efficient education to the citizens of the Turkey.

Human beings are social in nature and need acquisition and possession of knowledge for self-actualisation. This need can only be fulfilled in educational institutions. Turkish educational system is composed of pre-school, elementary, secondary and higher education. It is now evident that governments alone cannot meet the high demand of information and knowledge in the 21st century. Public schools and private schools are required to step in interchangeably when one falls short or fails. This study offers a short evaluation of the status of private schools in Turkey, a comparison of public and private schools, recommendations on public-private school balance and history of private schools, their structure and function and demands of parents. The study elaborates on governing factors in choosing a private school and how public schools can adapt to demands.

The purpose of this study was to determine trends in the subject areas, methods, data collection tools, data analysis methods, and sample types used in recent studies on Turkish education, published in journals from 2000-2011. A total of 558 articles from 44 journals were selected from databases by the purposive sampling method and examined using the “Turkish Education Publication Classification Form” (TEPCF). The method used in the study was content analysis. The data was analysed using the SPSS 16.0 program. The findings were that “survey” studies were the most common with regard to method, “quantitative research” methods were most commonly used, data were mostly gathered by “document and questionnaire,” and “descriptive analysis” was the most commonly used data analysis method. Also, “Elementary school” students were the most commonly used sample group, the sizes of samples most commonly ranged between 31-100 participants, and “convenience sampling” was the most common sampling technique. Regarding Turkish education research areas, studies with titles referring to “mixed skills areas” which covered more than one skill and studies on “reading education” formed the majority. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice - 13(3) • 1776-1781 ©2013 Educational Consultancy and Research Center