Education and Literacy

The overall literacy rate in Turkey was 86.5 percent in 2003, but only 78.7 percent for females. Eight years of primary school education has been mandatory since the 1997-98 school year; previously it was only five years. And recently, there have been efforts to make one year of preschool education compulsory, beginning in the 2009-2010 school year, in 32 selected provinces with the suitable infrastructure. There are plans to make preschool education nationwide and mandatory across 81 provinces by 2014, and bring the duration of mandatory education to nine years.

A gender gap exists in education. Lengthening primary education to eight years helped close this gap in that age group, but there is now a difference in enrolment rates following primary school. Girl children are sent to secondary and tertiary level schooling less than boys. There are a number of governmental and non-governmental organisations working to overcome this matter, including the “Hey Girls, Let’s Go to School” campaign run by the Turkish Ministry of National Education and UNICEF; the “Dad, Send Me to School” campaign initiated by the Dogan Group, specifically the daily newspaper Milliyet; and the “Snowdrops” project run by GSM operator TURKCELL and the Association to Support Contemporary Living.

After primary school, children can attend high schools or vocational schools, and then go onto university based on scores achieved on a national examination. Some of the high-schools provide education in English, French or German, to varying degrees. Urban schools are usually better equipped than are rural schools, and inadequacies of the public system cause many parents with the means to do so, to send their children to private schools. These are some of the issues that Turkey needs to resolve.