New Education System in Turkey (4 +4 +4): A Critical Outlook

Abstract

Education systems, which are one of the factors determining development levels of countries in many fields such as social, economic, scientific and technologic, etc., sometimes are subject to various changes in order to keep up with the requirements of the age, remain effective and improve themselves. Various changes have been made in Turkey recently with the purpose of making national education system more qualified and catching up with the standards of developed countries. With “Primary Education Law no 6287” adopted on 30 March 2012, a radical decision is made in our education system and put into practice. This law, which is known by public as 4+4+4 and made a sudden change in Turkish education system, has brought along many discussions. In this study, it is aimed that the impacts of 4+4+4 education system, which is created with the purpose of increasing the period of compulsory education in Turkey to the average of EU and OECD countries and providing a more qualified education environment to the students, are analysed since the time it has come up for the first time. Literature review method is used in the research and the reviews covered in the media, texts published by universities, unions and various organisations and articles reflecting the opinions of the domain experts regarding the new education system are analysed. This data is evaluated and a critical perspective is developed about the effectiveness of the 4+4+4 system.