Monitoring education

The latest Education Monitoring Report published by the Education Reform Initiative (ERG) of Sabanci University, which covers the 2011-2012 academic year, suggests that more needs to be done to equip Turkey with an education system that matches the country’s ambitions and allows individual students to reach their full potential. As it is, the system lacks an overall strategy.

There have, of course, been improvements. Primary enrolment is now almost universal, and the gender gap has all but closed at this level. The regional imbalances in the number of students per class have been reduced, leading to better student results. At the secondary level, enrolment has increased to 67 percent nationwide, but regional disparities remain huge. Surprisingly, the Ministry of Education chose this year not to share data on irregular attendance and on the drop-out ratio. Earlier research had shown that after making the transition from primary to secondary education, significant numbers of students drop out in the ninth or 10th grade.

The drive toward early education appears to be slowing down. In spite of an ambitious goal of 100 percent set by the government, enrolment among 60-72-months old dropped slightly after increasing in previous years. To what extent earlier registration in primary school under the 4+4+4 system has led to a rethink of this strategy is unclear, but the government passed on the opportunity to make early education free of charge when it adopted its new law earlier this year.

2011 was marked by a complete overhaul of the Ministry of Education, aimed at streamlining and decentralizing the structure. ERG deems it a positive development as long as capacity is strengthened at the local level and responsibilities clearly assigned.

State funding of education has stabilized at around 4 percent of GDP, which is below the 5 percent invested on average across the OECD and the 6 percent recommended by UNESCO for developing countries. Already so stretched that parents are often asked to make financial contributions to their children’s schools, the education budget has been strained further by the huge intake of new students caused by the introduction of the controversial 4+4+4 system. So even if in real terms the amount devoted to education has risen, the sum spent on each student has not and has even decreased somewhat.

Various programs have been introduced to measure quality across the system, to provide support for students who have fallen behind and to integrate students with special needs. But several obstacles still stand in the way of a real qualitative jump, not least the fact that a clear teacher policy has yet to be defined. The government is conscious that it is the key to improving educational outcomes, but opportunities for continuous training are still limited, and many teachers are not full-time employees. Last year, over 50,000 teachers were hired for wages as low as TL 7 per hour. Sometimes parachuted into classrooms at any point during the year, these teachers, who have no job security, struggle to provide the continuity the students need. Many inexperienced teachers with little or no formal training are also left without adequate support.

The growing trend toward vocational training was given new momentum with the recent education reform. If one includes open education, 44 percent of secondary enrolment is now in vocational and technical schools, and Turkey aims to increase the ratio further. What matters is again the quality of the training given and the job opportunities this education provides for girls and for boys. ERG points out that contrary to the information provided by the Turkish government, the tendency in the OECD and Europe is not to push more children into vocational training at an early age, but to remove barriers that used to separate vocational and more academic education. Overall, insufficient monitoring of educational outcomes still makes it hard for the authorities to fine-tune their education policies.