Problems of Turkish education system and suggested solutions: What do pre-service teachers think?

Özge Öztekin Bayır,Esra Tekel

doi:10.33902/jpr.2021167894

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to examine and put forward the opinions of pre-service teachers about the problems in the Turkish education system and their solution suggestions. The phenomenological model was used in the qualitatively designed study. The participants of the study are 148 students attending the education faculty of a university in the central Anatolia region in Turkey during the spring term of 2020-2021 academic year. The data of the study were collected through a data collection instrument prepared by the researchers and the participants were asked to fill out the instrument by replying to the questions. According to the analysis, the problems of Turkish education system and solutions suggested for these problems were classified under six themes: (i) knowledge provided at schools, (ii) student characteristics, (iii) teaching profession, (iv) physical environment, (v) society’s perception and (vi) implemented policies.

Highlights

Education is like the light reflected from the prism of wisdom that connects the past to the present and the present to the future while simultaneously mirroring us. -Ayhan Aydın, Education PolicyDespite the lack of a commonly agreed definition of education, it is clear that the focus of the available definitions lies on the process of developing individuals
According to the pre-service teachers, the main problem of the Turkish education system is “knowledge provided at schools”
The opinions of the pre-service teachers about the problems experienced in the Turkish education system and their solution suggestions were examined

Summary

Introduction

Education is like the light reflected from the prism of wisdom that connects the past to the present and the present to the future while simultaneously mirroring us. -Ayhan Aydın, Education PolicyDespite the lack of a commonly agreed definition of education, it is clear that the focus of the available definitions lies on the process of developing individuals. The issues that stand out within the framework of the goals of education process are discovering individuals‟ inborn talents and improving their personality characteristics; education is considered as a service for humanity and a lifelong process (Şişman, 2019). It is difficult to make a common and immutable definition of education, it is possible to say it basically deals with how life can be improved to develop in a better way. Education which is defined as “helping children and young people directly or indirectly to acquire necessary knowledge, skills and mentalities and to improve themselves both at school and in out-of-school environments” (Turkish Language Association, n.d.), emphasizes mental, Address of Corresponding Author. Esra Tekel, PhD, Afyon Kocatepe University, Sandikli School of Applied Sciences, Yunus Emre Campus, 03510, Sandikli/Afyonkarahisar.

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