SECONDARY EDUCATION CURRICULUM REFORM in TURKEY

1. SECONDARY EDUCATION CURRICULUM REFORM in TURKEY Emin Karip Assoc. Professor of Educ. Admin. Deputy Chair of the Turkey’s National Board of Education Ministry of Education, TURKEY

2. A brief overview of Turkish educational system • Highly centralized, • Decisions on curriculum and other educational matters come from the top, • National curriculum for both primary and secondary education prescribed in detail by Board of Education (BoE), • Textbooks are prepared both by MoNE and private sector, • Textbooks prepared by private sector are subject to BoE approval, • Individual teachers are free to choose all other instructional materials used in schools.

3. Organizational structure of secondary education • General secondary education • General high schools • Science high schools • Anatolian high schools • Vocational secondary education • Vocational high schools • Anatolian vocational high schools • Technical high schools • Anatolian technical high schools

4. Recent curriculum development efforts • Curriculum development within the scope of the National Education Development Project (1990-1999); • Curriculum developed for a total of 22 subjects • Only two have been approved by BoE • Curriculum development for basic subjects: Geography, Turkish and Literature, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and ForeignLanguages • Curricula were not approved and implemented.

5. Why curriculum development in 1990’s was a failure? • Lack of clear-shared vision of a secondary school curriculum • Lack of ownership of the curriculum development process, • Lack of agreement between the curriculum development unit at ERDD and BoE as the approving institution, • Overlapping roles and responsibilities among different units of the MoNE, • Lack of well articulated and planned dissemination strategy.

6. Learning from the experience • Legitimizing the process and curricular content and approaches; • formulating procedures for curriculum development and reform, • A good balance of expertise and practice, • Top priority to curriculum reform by political power, • Active participation of stakeholders. • Building the process on experience and accumulated knowledge rather than starting form point zero, • Designing strategies to build consensus and cooperation among related administrative units, • Taking a holistic approach rather a fragmented approach based on separate subjects.

7. Consensus: Need for a new curriculum; • To increase relevance of instruction to economy and democracy, • To ensure a balance of gender issues in teaching-learning process, • To align curricular content and structure with basic and secondary education programmes in the European Union countries, • To ensure integrity of curricular content, structure and approaches from Grade 1 to Grade 12, • To update curriculum in concert with developments in educational sciences and subject areas, • To increase the flexibility of the curriculum that the content and instructional strategies can be adapted to local situations, • To increase equality of opportunity by designing a more flexible curriculum, • To establish multi-level, skill-concept-learning strategy relations in the curricular content.

8. CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT PROCESS Need Assessment Identifying Broad Objectives Identifying concepts, skills and basic principles for the subject area Identifying learning domains and attainment targets Links with other learning domains Links with other learning domains Identifying learning units and themes Concept mapping Sharing draft curricula with stakeholders Material development Formal approval of curricula Implementation, monitoring, evaluation and assessment

9. A step by step, social learning approach • Consensus on a constructivist and holistic approach to curriculum design and implementation, • Consensus on a general framework for basic subjects including Turkish, Science and Technology, Social Studies and Mathematics, • A comprehensive approach to curricula from Grade 1 to Grade 12.

10. Status up to date • Basic education curricula for basic skill areas have been developed and approved by BoE, • Grade 1 to Grade 5 curricula have been piloted in 120 schools in 9 provinces, • New textbooks and instructional materials are being developed both by MoNE and private sector, • Nationwide dissemination and implementation is planned for 2005-2006

11. Secondary education programs • Secondary education programs have been classified into 18 broad fields based ISCED-97; • One field is classified as general secondary education • 17 fields are classified as vocational and technical education

12. Starting point at secondary school curriculum • Secondary school curriculum must be fully integrated with basic education, • All students either in general education or vocational education must acquire basic skills first, • Basic skills including Math, Science, Social studies and Turkish are core subjects for all students, • Core curriculum for basic skill areas are intended to be same for both general education and vocational education, • Differentiation in each field of education comes after mastering basic subjects at a certain level.

13. Curriculum development for basic subjects • Negotiations are ongoing for a Secondary Education Project with World Bank. • However, with or without the Project, MoNE is committed to reform secondary education curriculum. • Curriculum development for Turkish and Literature, Social Studies, Science and Mathematics has been ongoing. • There has been a significant progress and piloting of new curriculum has been planned for 2005-2006.

14. Curriculum development for vocational secondary education • Curriculum for 7 of 17 vocational fields are being developed within SVET, an EU funded project, • Curriculum for remaining 10 fields will be developed within Secondary Education Project, expected to start by 2006, • There has been an ongoing work to establish National Vocational Qualifications and this qualifications set basis for curriculum development in vocational education.