FOLLOWING THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE HEAD TEACHER

EDUCATION IN THE TURKEY OF THE FUTURE, 2020

The first report prepared under the Turkey of the Future project is on education, where our country has long been in a search for stability and methodology. The report aims to realistically study in 2018 what needs to be accomplished when looking forward to 2030 using quantitative and qualitative data. In this context, the study begins by explaining the state of education in the new millennium and the problems experienced from this perspective. The context necessary in resolving the issues and bettering current circumstances has been also emphasized in the purview of the report. Along with these improvements, students’ national and international examination performances are also analyzed. Finally, the developed policies, solution recommendations, and improvements have been presented in 12 points on the vision of the future. In preparing the report, the primary framework has been shaped by the relevant scientific literature, the framework and principal values established by the İLKE Foundation for Science, Culture and Education within the scope of the Turkey of the Future Project, and the educational perspectives of the research team. Besides multidisciplinarity and systems approach, locality and originality have been the two principal values when preparing this report

This introduction seeks to provide a contextual framework for understanding recent developments in the Turkish education system. For this purpose, it reviews some major policy issues such as neo-liberal education reforms and increasing religiosity. Then, the article introduces the various contributions included in this special issue of Comparative Education, and highlights some of the emerging issues and patterns.

2010

There have been noticeable developments in technology and knowledge all over the world which have created an amazing learning environment and impacted teaching and learning. As globalization and knowledge societies expand, reform on the teacher education programs is becoming an important issue because teachers are always seen as moderators of a changing society. Consequently, countries had to improve their educational systems in order to provide their people enough knowledge to use this technology. Paralleling fast changes in Turkish society, like in other countries, there have been some changes in the purpose of the functioning of education. Hence, the necessity to make improvements in teacher preparation and training is a current issue. To be highly qualified, teachers must be well prepared, especially in improving the quality of education facing global challenges. For this purpose, we need teacher education reform that aligns teacher preparation with the demands of an emerging in...

2015

This paper is an attempt to present a brief and concise outlook of education policy issues in Turkey and how priorities and policy-making in education have evolved in response to emerging challenges in Turkey within a period which covers between mid-1990 and late 2000s. Each locality has its own particular problems and solutions. Thus, it is not possible to draw generic conclusions for developing countries from the experience of Turkey. Therefore, the paper aims to contribute to the process of exploration of certain similarities and analogies in education policy-making in developing countries and support the on-going dialogue and interaction of researcher, policy-makers and other stakeholders of education policy-making.

International Journal of Educational Development, 2010

International Journal of Educational Development, 2007

There are a number of reform initiatives underway in Turkey but some of these, which are concerned with curricular and structural changes, have encountered serious difficulties. This paper begins with a brief summary of school effectiveness and school improvement research guiding many educational reforms. It then gives some information about school demographics in Turkey, and the country's performance in some international benchmarking studies. It continues with the shifts introduced as a result of recent curricular reorganisation in Turkey and, subsequently, with various issues related to their implications. Finally, the efforts to legislate some structural changes and the major controversies arising are presented.

There have been noticeable developments in technology and knowledge all over the world which have created an amazing learning environment and impacted teaching and learning. As globalization and knowledge societies expand, reform on the teacher education programs is becoming an important issue because teachers are always seen as moderators of a changing society. Consequently, countries had to improve their educational systems in order to provide their people enough knowledge to use this technology. Paralleling fast changes in Turkish society, like in other countries, there have been some changes in the purpose of the functioning of education. Hence, the necessity to make improvements in teacher preparation and training is a current issue. To be highly qualified, teachers must be well prepared, especially in improving the quality of education facing global challenges. For this purpose, we need teacher education reform that aligns teacher preparation with the demands of an emerging information society and an increasingly interdependent world in the 21 st Century. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a clear understanding on the following question: What would be the nature of a teacher preparation program for Turkish teachers (especially social studies teachers) that would take into account the demands of a global perspective engendered by an imminent entrance into the EU for Turkey? In other words, how should Turkish teacher education programs be modified to make teachers more globally aware and responsive in their teaching? In this regard, first, I provide a brief history of teacher education in Turkey and give a brief description of what teacher education programs currently look like. Second, I examine the roles of global actors (World Bank, EU etc..) in teacher education and finally I suggest what changes could be made to improve the quality of the program.

To be announced

For the past century it has been universally believed and taught in science that general relativity and quantum mechanics were and remain mutually incompatible while quantum theory alone overthrew the older classical notions of physics, even including relativity theory. The quantum is believed by most to be more fundamental than relativity and continuity of space. That interpretation of or world is just BS (Bad Science). Under these circumstances, it is an accepted fact (not a natural truth) that any unification of the two major modern paradigms, general relativity, and the quantum, can and will only be based upon of overthrow relativity and our modern ideas of gravity by the quantum. Yet nothing in science could be further from the truth and our experiences of our true physical reality. Einstein can even be blamed in part for these views because he got rid of the need for Newton’s concept of absolute time and space. In essence he prepared the way for the takeover of the quantum. Even toward the end of his famous Habilitationsschrift a half century earlier in 1854, where Riemann spoke of the physical possibilities of knowing and understanding the space his differential geometry explained, Bernhard Riemann stated that we could not really understand and know what space is until we conquered the smallest possible measure of space, the quanta. The belief that Einstein rid physics of the concept of absolute space and time was then and is still thought, taught, and caressed with passion and enthusiasm as strict scientific dogma by all concerned, even though he only rendered them unnecessary to do modern post-revolutionary physics, i.e., his relativity theories and gravity. But that fact was nothing new. The non-usefulness of absolute space and time had been known since Newton’s time when all physical mechanics describing matter in motion took place in relativistic space and time without reference to Newton’s concept of absolute space. Absolute space and time were only had mathematical and philosophical importance. Yet now, the unification of all the major physics paradigms demonstrates conclusively that quantum theory and the quantum world that it portrays is nothing more nor less than a new intuitive vision of a physical point-absolute space and time that has been derived mathematically because no such thing as a zero-point of nothing, a no-thing, an infinitely small nothingness, or such physical nonsense can exist in our physical space or time without the universe collapsing into it. Points, whether discrete or not, are just mathematical gimmicks used for conceptualization and the logical ordering of how we think. So, the real problem for physics is ‘what is a point’ and if zero points of physical space are real then how can that reality be justified? Or is continuity our reality and the zero point just a mathematical artifact or calculational convenience? Even the original Greek Natural Philosophers argued over just this ‘point’ and never solved the point problem, so they never accepted the zero point as a valid number. For Newton, who was familiar with motion and matter in motion, this problem was translated into his spinning bucket experiment which he related to the orbit of Jupiter.