Secularists at Bay

Secularists at Bay

The Economist
“A NEW Turkey” was the promise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who became its first elected president on August 10th. No sooner was he sworn in than Mr Erdogan said he would move out of Ataturk’s palace, in Ankara’s secular Cankaya district, into a new state-of-the-art complex on the edge of the city. Never mind that an Ankara court ruled in February that the site was environmentally protected. “If they [the court] have the power to demolish it [the new office], let them, I shall sit in it,” Mr Erdogan said. Read More

Closing Down Prep Schools Another Poor Education Policy Decision

Closing Down Prep Schools Another Poor Education Policy Decision

Today’s Zaman, Yonca Poyraz Doğan
The evidence says that going to prep schools increases a student’s probability of entering university by 10 percent. This might mean a huge difference for a student. The second finding is that sending a student to a prep school is a big financial burden on a family. Third, if a child does well in school, the family of the student tries to find financial ways to send the student to a prep school; this and the first finding tell us that disadvantaged children can socially move upward if they go to prep schools. If you put all of this together, we are not convinced that shutting down prep schools will either improve quality of education in Turkey or increase educational equality,” said Batuhan Aydagül, director of the Education Reform Initiative (ERI or Eğitim Reformu Girişimi, ERG). Read More

4+4+4: Turning the Education System Upside Down

4+4+4: Turning the Education System Upside Down

Perspectives, Aytuğ Şaşmaz
For many of those who work in the area of education policies, it was hard to believe that a draft law entitled “Bill on Amending the Primary Education Law and Other Laws” was submitted to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on February 21, 2012. In fact, Zaman daily had already published a news story on January 5 about the division of the education system into different stages. However, no one expected the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to propose a legislation which divides the eight-year primary education into two stages, stage one and stage two, each lasting four years; and allows for distance education and apprenticeship training starting from stage two, i.e. at the age of 10, therefore reducing compulsory education effectively to four years and enabling vocational training to start at the age of 10. This is the same government that has been taking steps since coming to power to increase access to the eight-year compulsory schooling. Submission of the bill to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) was merely the beginning of a process full of surprises Read More

Turkey and the Great Gatsby Curve

Turkey and the Great Gatsby Curve

Hürriyet Daily News, Emre Deliveli
A graph in a recent presentation by U.S. Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Alan Krueger created a lot of buzz in the economics blogosphere last week. Originally from a paper by University of Ottowa’s Miles Corak, it shows a negative relationship between the Gini coefficient and intergenerational earnings elasticity.  Read More

New Universities Cause Debate on Quality vs. Quantity

New Universities Cause Debate on Quality vs. Quantity

Turkish Daily News, Mustafa Oğuz
The government’s education initiative to open 17 new universities, which was passed by Parliament late on Thursday, has stirred up debate on whether it is aimed at addressing the rising demand for universities or just an election ploy. The current Parliament has established 39 universities since November 2002, with only nine out of 81 provinces in the country being left without a university. Some experts believe the government’s emphasis on higher education is misplaced and the focus should really be on vocational studies at the secondary level because Turkey suffers a serious lack of medium-level technicians. The president of the Education Personnel Union (Eğitim-Sen), Alaaddin Dinçer while acknowledging the importance of investing in university education, said the low quality of education at vocational schools was a big worry. Read More