Turkey's education policy during the AK Party era (2002-2013).

• Author: Celik, Zafer
• Position: Essay

As a number of international observers have noted, the "education system in Turkey has shown remarkable improvement since 2003 in terms of better students' performance and reduced inequality with a concurrent and sustained increase in enrollments". (1) Indeed, Turkey has achieved an unprecedented success in expanding educational opportunities and access from preschool to higher education by building new educational institutions and renovating existing ones. The recent improvements in Turkey's educational system are a direct result of the Justice and Development Party's (the AK Party) educational policies and reforms. Indeed, the AK Party has been one of the most reformist governments of Turkey to date and has paid particular attention to improving the country's educational system. As of 2002, successive AK Party governments implemented many educational reforms with a number of goals in mind, among them to increase access to education, to improve the quality of education, to democratize the education system that had been unable to meet social demands. Notwithstanding these improvements, some challenges remain. For instance, Turkey still lags one full year behind the OECD average according to the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009.2

This article focuses on the educational policies of the AK Party governments during the last decade. The AK Party's education reforms and policies will be examined through the lenses of access, quality, governance, finance, and democratization of education. The current problems and challenges of Turkey's education system will also be discussed. In order to analyze national educational policies, strategies, and plans and their implementation during the AK Party era, this article utilizes document analysis as a research method. Major documents sources used in this analysis include official agenda of governments; development plans; official reports, statistics, and documents; nongovernmental documents including reports prepared by national and international organizations; as well as international studies such as PISA and TIMMS, conducted by OECD and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) respectively.

Enhancing Access to Education

Up until the early 2000s, students' enrollment levels and duration remained considerably low. For instance, the average Turkey's student received six years of schooling, only half of the average among EU and OECD students, when the AK Party came to power in the country. (3) In 2002, only 5 percent of children attended pre-school compared to 90 percent in elementary schools, 50 percent in secondary education and 15 percent in higher education. (See Table 1) Acknowledging that the lack of adequate schooling represented an obstacle for Turkey's economic growth, successive AK Party governments sought to improve enrollment rates and the average years of schooling at all levels from pre-school to higher education. Below, we discuss developments with respect to access to education.

Pre-School

Children's enrollment rate in pre-school institutions remained quite low in the early 2000s. In 2000, only 5.38 percent of children between 36 and 72 months of age were enrolled in educational institutions. (See Table 1) Various public debates and official reports during this period raised the question of promoting pre-school education and enhancing access to pre-school education. (4) Similarly, national education programmes and initiatives highlighted the importance of pre-school education and pledged to take concrete steps to promote pre-school education. For example, the government aimed to increase pre-school enrollment to 50 percent in its 9th Development Plan and the Official Agenda of the 60th Government. (5) Similarly, the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of National Education aimed at raising the pre-school enrollment rate to 70 percent by 2014.6 The vocal support for pre-school education evolved into government policy as of 2009. The Circular Note No. 53 on Promoting Pre-School Education was released on June 15th, 2009 and emphasized the need to ensure that pre-school institutions worked at full capacity, that each elementary school had at least one pre-school grade and that vacant schools be used for pre-school education. Furthermore, the Ministry hired 10,000 pre-school teachers in 2009. (7) The Ministry also resolved to reach 100 percent pre-school enrollment rates among 60 to 72 months-old children in 32 provinces in the 2009-2010 school year and began its implementation. The following year, the initiative expanded its scope to a total of 57 provinces. (8) As a result of all these efforts, Turkey witnessed significant improvements with respect to pre-school education. Over the decade-long tenure of the AK Party, the pre-school enrollment rate among children of 36-72 months of age increased eight-fold to reach 39.7 percent in 2012. (See Table 1)

Primary Education

From the late 1990s onwards, low levels of primary school enrollment became a pressing concern in Turkey. The decision to adopt 8 years of mandatory education in the late 1990s made it necessary for governments to identify access to primary education as a priority item on their education agenda. (9) To address the issue, governments implemented the Basic Education Project I with support from the World Bank. The project, however, failed to increase primary school enrollment to desired levels. In 2002, 90.98 percent of all children (94.49 percent of male children and 87.34 percent of female children) attended primary school. A major concern was the extremely low levels of female children's enrollment in certain geographical areas: For instance, only 69.4 percent of female children, compared to 90.98 percent of male children, in eastern and southeastern provinces enrolled in primary school in the 2003-2004 school year. (10) Throughout the 2000s, a series of government and civil society initiatives sought to promote female children's schooling. (11) Especially after 2006, primary school enrollment levels improved significantly. By 2012, 98.86 percent of children gained access to primary education and the gender gap was practically eliminated. Improvements with regard to the schooling of female children in disadvantaged geographical regions proved most notable. (12) Discrepancies between provinces, however, persists: For example, certain cities in central-Anatolia, including Cankiri, Tokat and Gumushane experience relatively low enrollment levels -90.04 percent, 92.90 percent, and 93.99 percent respectively. (13)

Secondary Education

In the early 2000s, approximately 50 percent of students in Turkey enrolled in secondary education institutions--a rather low figure compared to developed countries. The 8th Development Plan (2001-2005) aimed to increase secondary education enrollment levels to 75 percent by the end of its mandate in 2005. With the goal of promoting secondary education enrollment, the AK Party government created specific targets through a variety of official documents: For instance, the Official Agenda of the 60th Government (2008-2012) aimed to increase secondary education enrollment to 90 percent. Meanwhile, the 9th Development Plan (2007-2013) aimed to boost the enrollment rate to 100 percent by 2013. From 2009 onwards, secondary education enrollment levels recorded a steady rise and reached approximately 70 percent in 2012. The Parliament adopted Law No. 6287 (popularly known as 4+4+4 reforms) to increase mandatory education to 12 years. As such, although the government failed to meet the targets outlined in the 9th Development Plan, the introduction of 12 years of mandatory education will likely cause a rapid rise in secondary education enrollment rates.

Although significant improvements have been made over the past ten years with respect to secondary education enrollment, certain gender and geographical differences persists. While secondary education enrollment rates for male and female children differed by almost 10 percent (55.72 percent to 45.16 percent respectively), the difference was reduced to only 1 percent by 2012 (70.77 percent to 69.31 percent respectively). Regional discrepancies, however, have been alarming. While developed regions enjoyed rather high enrollment levels, disadvantaged regions have remained steadily below the national average. For instance, 2012 data showed that provinces such as Bilecik, Rize, Artvin, and Bolu recorded over 90 percent secondary education enrollment rates with a number of provinces like Edirne, Kirklareli, Canakkale, Kutahya, and Kocaeli steadily above 80 percent. Meanwhile, enrollment rates in certain areas like Bitlis, Sanliurfa, Sirnak, and Siirt remained around 40 percent while Agri, Van, and Mus were below 40 percent. (14) In short, Turkey made important progress in terms of gender equality in secondary education with enrollment rates among female children surpassing male children in the country's Western provinces. Despite this impressive performance, inter-regional differences have been alarming as enrollment levels in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions have been drastically below the national average. Moreover, enrollment levels among female children remained considerably lower than among male children in these disadvantaged areas.

Higher Education

The rapid rise in secondary education enrollment rates and subsequently the demand for higher education has placed the country's higher education system under immense pressure. For decades, there had been a serious gap between supply and demand in university admissions. In 2002, only a third of 1.8 million university entrance exam applicants, approximately 660.000 students, were able to secure admission. In this respect, 2006 was an important year in the history of higher education in Turkey. While no new public universities were established between 1994 and 2006, a total of 21 private universities...