Missing opportunities

In Turkey, in particular, politics are conducted in a pressure cooker environment: debates are intense and fierce, surrounded by a thick fog of corrosive steam. The tightly-closed lid, which keeps discussions focused on local dynamics, often keep the global context out.

International surveys help inject a much-needed dose of reality. In a globalized world, national measures of success alone aren't enough. The latest PISA survey of 510,000 teenagers in 65 countries -- 34 of which are OECD members -- shows that Turkish teenagers still lag behind their international peers, ranking 44th in maths, 43rd in science and 42nd in reading ability. The best performers were mainly from Asia, with the Shanghai region coming first. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and South Korea were also among top scorers, as were Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

In the past decade, significant progress in educational outcomes has been registered in Turkey, but the pace of change is slow. Despite some improvement on the equity front and a better performance from its weakest students, many of whom came from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, Turkey is still among the countries with the lowest level of social inclusion in schools.

Recently the public debate has focused on the government's plans to ban prep schools. Indeed, given the shortcomings of the current education system, the rapid closure of dershanes would probably lead to a further decline in Turkey's international scores. But the PISA results also show that while Turkish students operate in a competitive national environment, the many zig-zags in education prevent the system from delivering the level of international competitiveness they should be able to expect.

The PISA survey shows that the best performing systems are those that allocate resources most equitably, grant more autonomy to individual schools and engage with all stakeholders, including the students themselves, seeking their feedback. Investment in the selection and the training of teachers is also a key feature of success.

Another area where Turkey has squandered an early advantage is gender. Dec. 5 marks the 79th anniversary of the day when women were given the right to vote and to be elected in this country. At the time, this put Turkey in the vanguard of countries that recognized the importance of gender equality to sustain social and economic development. Had this early step been followed by targeted policies to include women in all areas of public life in the following decades, Turkey today wouldn't languish in 120th position among 136 countries, in the gender gap rankings, and it would probably have climbed higher that its current 43rd position in the global competitiveness rankings.  

As local elections are approaching, nearly eight decades after women won the right to be elected, it is worth remembering that women currently only account for 1.2 percent of local representatives. Fatma Şahin, the family and social policy minister, has just been named mayoral candidate for the metropolitan municipality of Gaziantep. If elected, she will be the first woman to be mayor of a large municipality -- an important step forward, but one that is long overdue. Out of 2,950 mayors across the country, only 26, or 0.8 percent, are female, while women only account for 4.2 percent of municipal council members across the country.

In a recent news item, the Anadolu news agency reported that draft amendments to parliamentary regulations submitted to the prime minister included the abolition of the Commission for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men. Let's hope the prime minister will understand how detrimental such a move would be to Turkey's future. The current government has done little to challenge, indeed it has encouraged, traditional perceptions that see women primarily as mothers and wives. Turkey's poor record on the gender front suggests, however, that despite the country's early legislative effort, gender parity has not been a priority for the governments that preceded this one, either.