EDUCATION SINCE THE REPUBLIC
1. TRANSFORMATION MOTIVATED BY THE REPUBLIC
The tremendous change realized under the leadership of Atatürk, “Turkish Revolution” is the leading factor affecting the national education system. Atatürk has pointed out that one of the main targets of Turkish education had to be raising a patriotic generation nourished with national culture. The purpose of the new social understanding that had started with the establishment of the Republic, is to draw a contemporary route to the traditional social structure, to cause to gain contemporary citizen consciousness and to form the social structure through education. It is possible to examine the basic characteristics of education in the era of Republic under four main subtitles.
The education institutions were far from being national before the Republic. The schools were structured in three main channels as horizontal institutions closed to each other. The first and most common one was local schools and medreses based on Arabic, Koran and memorizing. The second was reformist schools of Tanzimat called as idadî and sultanî and the third was schools educating in foreign language like colleges and minority schools. In these three channels, three different opinions, three different life styles and even three different peoples of different eras were being educated.
Within this atmosphere, it was not possible to raise generations that accepted national sovereignty as life style, willing to strengthen national culture and to attain national unity connected with these three education channels. Within the transformation process radical measures were taken and Law on Unification of National Education No: 430 was put into force on 3 March 1924. Through this Law, the three channels were merged the fist ones were closed, the second ones were developed and the third ones were put under the control and custody of Ministry of National Education.
This Law means the unification of education and has two important features. First one is the democratization of the education system. The second important feature of the Law is to activate secularism in the field of education. The following regulations were introduced though this Law.
- All the medreses and schools administered by private foundations or Ministry of Religious and Foundation Affairs are connected to the Ministry of National Education.
- The money allocated to schools and medreses from the budget of Ministry of Religious and Foundation Affairs shall be transferred to the education budget.
- The Ministry of Education shall open a religious faculty to raise higher religious experts within Darülfünûn and separate schools to raise imams and hatips.
In the Republic era, one of the most important legal arrangements was the Law on Education Organization dated 22 March 1926 numbered 789.
With this Law;
- Determination of the equivalence and levels of schools opened or shall be opened by another Ministry according to necessities and private schools are given to the Ministry of National Education.
- No school can be opened in Turkey without the permission and positive opinion of the Ministry of National Education.
- The duty of preparing the education programs for secondary education institutions under other Ministries belong to the Ministry of National Education. The programs of higher education institutions shall be prepared with the positive opinion of the Ministry of National Education and shall be approved by the Ministry.
- Vocational and technical education institutions that were managed by local authorities are now included in the Ministry of National Education. Because of continuously increasing services of the Ministry, in addition to the Undersecretariat of Ministry, Undersecretariat for Vocational and Technical Education was also established.
Through this Law, the primary education schools were arranged as provincial and district (daytime), provincial and district (boarding), village (daytime) and village (boarding) schools. The secondary education schools were arranged as high schools, secondary education schools, primary school teacher schools and village primary school teacher schools. Other than these schools there are also higher and secondary teacher schools.
In Law No: 789, a “ Language Commission” was established within the Ministry of National Education in order to save the Turkish language from the influences of other languages and in order that the Turkish language could reach the place it deserves among the languages of the world. By this way, education in Turkish was not only realized but also developed and extended.
Moreover, “Board of Education and Discipline” was established, the science and experts board of the Board of Education and Discipline was envisioned to be the “commanding” force of the Ministry. The discussions were intensified on Board of Education and Discipline during the talks on Education Organization in the TGNA. Minister of National Education of that time Mr. Mustafa Necati said that the Board of Education and Discipline was thought as a science and experts and board that shall morally control the Ministry of National Education and deal with big problems of education of the Turkish nation in and out of schools.
In this Law, teacher training was seen as the most leading problems of the education system and it was accepted that quality education could only be reached by qualified teachers and the principle “the basic issue is teaching in the national education system” was accepted.
1.3. CHANGING THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION
In the era of Republic, official education meetings named Science Boards and Education Summits were held in order to change the quality of education, to discuss education and training issues and certain basic principles were determined.
Other than the Education Congress of July 1921, the first similar meeting was held in July 1923 named as First Science Board, second in April 1924, third in December 1925 - January 1926. With the establishment of Board of Education and Discipline in 1926, such works were assigned to this department. After that, 16 summits were held until now, first in 1939 and the last in 1999 under the name “National Education Summit”.
Table 1. Science Boards
|
No |
Date |
Main Issues of Discussion |
|
I. |
July-1923 |
Increasing primary education term to 6 years, 30 children at grades 1 and 2 in primary education schools and 40 in other grades, Children at the age of primary education shall not be enrolled in foreign schools, Boarding regional schools to be opened for small villages, In selection of religion course teachers, some qualifications to be fulfilled just like other teachers, Name Sultanî to be replaced by High School.
|
|
II. |
April-1924 |
Decreasing of primary education to 5 years, High schools to become 6 years (3 years preliminary, 3 years specific), Increasing of teacher schools to 5 years, Text Books. |
|
III. |
December 1925 - January 1926 |
Personal rights of teachers, Collection of high schools in certain centers, Establishment of Board of Education and Discipline. |
Table 2. National Education Summits
|
No |
Date |
Main Issues of Discussion |
|
I |
1939 |
Village schools with three grades to become with five grades, Opening of vocational and technical schools and courses in every place with 200 primary school graduates. |
|
II. |
1943 |
Determination of principles of Turkish morality, Teaching of history and native language. |
|
III. |
1946 |
Arrangement of programs of art and trade schools so as to fit business life, Atelier course hours to be increased in such schools and decreasing of culture courses. |
|
IV. |
1949 |
Examination of primary school programs, History – Geography – Citizenship education in primary schools, Secondary school program, increasing the high school term to 4 years. |
|
V. |
1953 |
Problems of pre-primary and primary education, Problems of children in need of special education. |
|
VI. |
1957 |
Vocational and technical education, Public training. |
|
VII. |
1962 |
Relations of primary and secondary schools, Technical education,High school programs. |
|
VIII. |
1970 |
Education system as a whole of three education levels based on each other: Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education. Determination of principles of horizontal and vertical transfers between these levels. |
|
IX. |
1974 |
Problems of secondary education, Inclusion of programs in secondary education institutions that prepare the students for life, for profession, for business areas and for higher education, Passing grades and credit order at secondary schools.
|
|
X. |
1981 |
Unification of education system, Focusing on vocational and technical education at all levels of education system, Horizontal and vertical transfers, Orientation in transition to secondary education from primary education, Taking into account the interests, desires, secondary education success and program type of the student as a whole in transition to higher education, Based on multi-purpose but single type high school, Teacher training, Focusing more on teaching of Turkish language, Atatürk issues in programs. |
|
XI. |
1982 |
Connection of teacher training institutions to universities, Raising of education experts, Various opportunities for teachers that shall have expert training (salary, allowance etc.) Making the teaching profession attractive, Pre-service and in service training of teachers, Improving the working conditions of teachers, Improving the living conditions of teachers, Provision of balanced teacher distribution. |
|
XII. |
1988 |
Education system, |
|
XIII. |
1990 |
Non-formal education. |
|
XIV. |
1993 |
Pre-primary education, |
|
XV. |
1996 |
Orientation in primary education, |
|
XVI. |
1999 |
Vocational and technical education. |
In order to increase the literacy rate, to ease education and to make Turkish a common language, a new Latin based alphabet was accepted on 1 November 1928 with Law No: 1353. In order to save Turkish from the yoke of foreign languages, to develop it in accordance with the requirements of science and to prevent the misusage of Turkish, Turkish History Institution and Turkish Language Institution were established in 1931 and 1932 respectively.
The basic impacts of language, literature and history reforms on education are as follows;
- An extensive literacy campaign was initiated in order to teach the new alphabet to the society.
- Text books, dictionaries, all printed official publications were prepared again.
- Many teachers were employed in Turkish History and Language Institutions.
- Like in daily language, an extensive Turkification campaign was initiated for scientific terms as well and education at schools was provided on this basis.
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