The Turkish education system is a state supervised system that is designed
to ensure a skillful labour force in the country. Education is an important
priority for national development and commands 22% of the national budget.
Primary education is compulsory for primary school between the age of 6 and 14
and enrollment in this age range was nearly 100% in 2001.
Kindergarten: This is a pre-school
facility for children between the ages of 5 and 7 years. Though present, there
are not enough kindergartens to match the number of children in the age group.
As a result, this stage is only used by a limited part of the population,
mainly busy families in cities. Games, theatre, manners and songs are the main
focus of this stage of education.
Primary school: The primary or
elementary school provides eight years of mandatory education for children
between 6 and 14. Here, the focus is on basic information, Turkish language,
mathematics, social sciences, art and music. Sometimes, English and another
foreign language are taught. Both public and private schools exists side by
side with each other. While the curriculum is essentially the same, private
schools add on more extracurricular activities like swimming etc and also teach
additional languages. The average number of students per classroom is 20 – 40
but in rural areas, there may be even more students per class. At the end of
the eighth grade, students take an exam and according to their scores, are
placed in various high schools.
High school: This generally lasts four
years with some high schools adding on an extra year for preparatory classes in
a foreign language. Students choose one foreign language – the choice is
generally between English, French and German. Religious education is optional
and is generally a comparative study of religions instead of only Islam. The
Anatolian, Science and Private High Schools are the best and most popular in
the country. Science lessons are taught in the foreign language of the
student's choice. Education is free except for private high schools where it
can cost about $4000 per annum. At the end of school, after 12th
grade, students are required to sit for the High School Finishing Exam. Upon
passing this, they will need to take the OSS, an extremely important and
fiercely competitive exam whose scores will determine the opportunities
available for education on the next level.
Universities: Upon completion of the OSS,
students that pass enter universities. Universities provide two- four years of
under-graduate study and an additional two years for graduate programmes. Most
major universities are located in Ankara and Istanbul. Quality of education
varies greatly –some are on par with American Universities. Turkish
universities participate in the Socrates- Erasmus programme. For more on that,
please go the Erasmus section.
Sources:
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