Students pay price for gov't's ill-managed education policies

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government's education policy has resulted in pure chaos, as the rule has been to restructure the education policy in line with an Islamist political agenda, according to various education unions and civil society groups.

However, the issue is not only about the TEOG system. Past education policies, whose implications are continuing to negatively affect students and their parents, are also contributing to the problematic education landscape.

The government's surprising decision in November of 2013 to close down prep schools (dershane), which are regarded by middle or low-income families as an equalizer of educational opportunities due to their affordable fees, is also seen as another bad decision following the TEOG failure, as the government introduced the TEOG system as an alternative to the prep schools. The prep schools will be allowed to operate until Sept. 1, 2015, and all preparatory courses will be shut down after this date.

The exam results of 1.2 million students who took the TEOG were announced last week, and most of the students were placed in high schools in accordance with their preferences. However, 134,000 students, including many non-Muslim and Alevi students, were automatically enrolled in high schools determined by the TEOG system, fuelling anger among families.

Many students and their families are upset by the auto-enrollments as some students are being enrolled in imam-hatip high schools, which provide religious education, while others are being placed in schools far from their homes, even 100 kilometers away.

Those students and their families who are unhappy with the placements have rushed to educational institutions to try to transfer the registrations to schools that are close to their homes and that are not religious. Changes of registration will continue until Sept. 26 and the first round of the transfer of registrations was announced on Friday.

Speaking with Sunday's Zaman about the problems in the education system, Democratic Educators' Union (DES) Chairman Gürkan Avcı said there have been serious complaints regarding the TEOG system by parents and students, saying: “We warned the Ministry of Education [MEB] about the implications of the TEOG system and asked them to take urgent steps to deal with the problems that students and their parents faced caused by the auto-enrollments.

Raising concerns about the constant changes in the education system in line with the frequent changes of ministers and undersecretaries, Avcı went on to say: “A well-established system should be designated in education rather than one based on the personal opinions of the new ministers and others. Families and students are fed up with these constant changes in the education system. No one has the right to dominate students' future with arbitrarily made education policies."

“Some students were placed in high schools far away from their homes. For instance, how can a 14-year-old girl travel 150 kilometers every day to reach its school?”

Union of Active Educators (Aktif Eğitim-Sen) Chairman Osman Bahçe, speaking with Sunday's Zaman, also criticized the arbitrary policy changes in the education system, saying: "When a policy change is decided to be made, then the pluses and minuses of the probable outcomes should be taken into consideration. In contrast to this, we encounter the arbitrary practices of the MEB such as imposing the 4+4+4 system on students and replacing the Level Determination Examination [SBS] with TEOG. When the ministry first introduced the TEOG system, it assured families that students will have more spare time for activities such as music and sport, as well as not needing to take additional classes in prep schools for a placement in a better university. Also, the MEB had assured students that they will have a better education when compared to the previous periods. But, the point where we stand now indicates a fiasco and a failure in terms of putting the promises into practice -- as the TEOG chaos proved."

As the education system has been constantly revised and restructured by the government, five ministers of education have changed up until now. Following Erkan Mumcu, AK Party's Hüseyin Çelik took the chair. Ömer Çelik then followed Nimet Çubukçu as minister. Currently, Nabi Avcı and his team are shaping Turkey's education policies.

With respect to the reasons behind the massive failures in education policies, he says: "The issue is also related to the ministry's employment regime. The ministry may appoint provincial and district directors of national education in line with its political ideology. But if all members of the ministry are designed in accordance with a certain political vision and when those specialists in education are relieved of their duties, such problems [such as the TEOG chaos] naturally occur. Many personnel who are not qualified took the positions. So, a system was launched with this legacy has produced the current problems. It is not surprising that a student be placed in a high school 150 kilometers away from their home.”

According to Bahçe, if the government had a consistent education policy, then such frequent changea of ministers would be out of question. Citing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's expressed intention to raise “religious generations,” Bahçe said the current practices are a reflection of molding generations in accordance with the AK Party's own political agenda instead of creating “religious youth.”