TURKEY-EDUCATION: Students Ready, The System Waits

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Oct 5 1995 (IPS) - School’s out in Turkey. Changes in the system used for grading secondary school students have caused a two-week postponement to the start of classes for the new year as teachers struggle to come to terms with their altered roles.

Meanwhile, in the country’ssoutheast Kurdish provinces, locks are rusting as authorities keep schools closed for at least another year – and the children displaced fill Istanbul’s streets.

Seeking to eliminate as many students as possible from the already overburdened high schools, the authorities introduced a system of “grade completion” on the eve of the start of the new secondary school year.

That obliges the 700,000 newly enrolled sophomores to complete a set curriculum. If they cannot pass the final exams for two successive years, they are moved to vocational schools, or left out of the system entirely.

Juniors and seniors – subjected to a “crediting system – will be free to choose their own curricula and choose options for their future higher education. They will not be obliged to repeat a full semester, only courses they have failed.

That system was also in place for secondary school students up to four years ago. Value was placed on each course in accordance with the class and homework hours required to be fulfilled in one semester. Students were promoted to higher grades if they scored a certain credit total.

Now, teachers are required to handle a double grading system: one (“grade completion”) for 700,000 sophomores, another for the 1.5 million juniors and seniors still subject to “crediting”.

And the new arrangement was announced only one week before the opening of new educational year by Nevzat Ayaz, Turkey’s Minister of Education.

Critics say the change has imposed immense complexities for students and parents, and the teachers affected.

“It was understood during the ‘experimental period’ in 1990 that the ‘crediting’ system would not function under Turkey’s insufficient material conditions, yet it was introduced,” says Ahmet Suna an 18 year old senior high school student. “Four years have passed in vain.”

“We have been toys in politicians’ hands. No one knows if they will not shift for another system three years later,” he complained.

Turkey’s senior high school students take two rounds of entrance exams to determine their eligib9ility for entering the country’s 500 higher education institutions and colleges attached to 50 universities.

Kemal Bal, chair of the Teachers’ Union, Egitim-Sen, notes that teenagers, whose personal lives are subject to most strict control until they are 15, would now be deciding about their own future training.

“Add (to this change) illegal grant collection from parents during enrollment, racially and religiously biased text books, unaffordably expensive stationary prices, education is a huge social problem of all,” he concludes.

Professor Suleyman Ozoglu of Ankara University’s Faculty of Educational Sciences, points to the contradictory reasons given by the authorities for changing the system.

“They claim that the ‘crediting system’ due to larger leisure times it leaves for the students nurtures violence, but before that it was equally claimed that the student was left no leisure time,” he said.

He said the Education and Training Council of the Ministry of Education – the highest decision making body for national education – had slavishly obeyed the minister’s arbitrary decisions.

“The new system simply aims at eliminating the unsuccessful students long before they reach the university gates, and forces the students (to succeed) at any price. All responsibilities are thus charged to the students,” he concludes.

Esra, a junior from Istanbul, sitting in a smoky coffee house, said: “The school has no canteen, no sports hall and no library. Where am I supposed to pass four empty hours?”

“The students start the day lively in the first hour, but after three or more empty hours they are rather exhausted and cannot concentrate on the courses,” says Samet Acar, director of Avcilar High School.

“I would like to discuss these with the officials who introduced the new system,” he says.

Ismail Ciftcioglu, director of Istanbul’s Gultepe High School, said with facilities very limited, “the students are not provided with sufficient medium for leisure. They are simply out of control.”

Under the prevailing ‘crediting system’, students choose their courses with regard to future plans for higher education but plans generally remain on paper due to staff bottlenecks.

Halil Musluoglu, director of Kartal High School, complains that although all the existing staff works full-time, there is a deficit of 24 hours for literature classes, 50 hours for geography, 32 hours for history and 20 hours for philosophy classes.

Meanwhile the students are forced to complete high school education in seven semesters instead of six due to unfulfilled courses. Seemingly staffed schools are not in a better shape the students claim.

A group of students from Istanbul’s Kadikoy High School for Girls completed about the inadequacy of teaching. “The psychology courses are given by a theology teacher, sociology courses by English teacher, and French courses by a literature teacher,” said one.

Meanwhile, Istanbul’s streets overflow with thousands of idle children of primary school age whose parents have recently emigrated from the southeast Kurdish provinces.

Although there are no reliable statistics it is estimated that a greater part of some three million Kurds who have been forcibly displaced from their native villages have settled in Istanbul.

Generally deprived of necessary means of subsistence, most emigrant Kurds are unable to afford their children’s schooling.

Further, according to official statistics, of some 5,000 primary schools in the 11 provinces under emergency case rule in the southeast, at least 1,200 are closed. Others suffer from a staff deficit around 3,575. In places where there is no staff deficit, schools are reported to remain closed due to security concerns.

One half of 6,000 teachers who have been appointed to the southeast are also reported to resign from office because of insecure conditions.

“218 of the closed schools after being repaired will be opened by the year end,” says Dogan Hatipoglu southeast Diyarbakir Governor, who admits that 600 schools within the city borders are already closed.

“On the secondary school level there is a staff deficit of 837 in Diyarbakir,” says one official from teachers’ union local branch. “But only 145 new teachers are appointed and 200 teachers are appointed for 1,100 vacant places in the primary schools.”

“No one knows how many of those appointed will start teaching,” he sighs. “The deficit daily grows for there is great emigration.”

One hundred and fifth of the 350 closed schools in Tunceli province were demolished during forcible village evacuations in 1995 while 35 of them were set ablaze by the guerrilla group the PKK. The remaining were not opened this year due to security concerns and those opened are yet to be appointed staff.

“A single teacher is yet to be appointed to the High School where 2,000 students are already enrolled,” says Mazlum Arslan, the mayor of Tunceli.

“Practically the people are striped of their right to schooling. Even if there might be schools and teachers somewhere people as a matter of fact are unable to afford even a pencil,” he concludes.

TURKEY-EDUCATION: Students Ready, The System Waits

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Oct 5 1995 (IPS) - School’s out in Turkey. Changes in the system used for grading secondary school students have caused a two-week postponement to the start of classes for the new year as teachers struggle to come to terms with their altered roles.
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