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Being a frequent visitor to Turkey and someone who has stayed in the country for an extended period of time on several occasions, it is always interesting to observe Turkey and the Turks from a close range.
To live among ordinary Turks is quite an enlightening experience. It gives me the opportunity to see a side of Turkey unknown to package tourists or seaside resort visitors.
Not many people outside of Turkey know that Turkey has one of the toughest high school and university entrance examinations systems in the world. Every year tens of thousands of students enter the OSS and OKS examinations and fight for a limited number of places - around 15% of the total number of candidates entering the exmainations each year - at one of the country's state universities and high schools. The tests are based on a series of multiple choice questions, to be answered within 3 hours. The results of these two examinations alone will determine if a student will go to the high school/university of his/her choice, as well as the subject he/she is allowed to study.
Given the extremely limited number of places available, it is hardly surprising that 'cram school culture', normally assoicated with countries with the highest stress factors in the world - notably Japan and Korea - also flourish in Turkey. Turkish school children attend cram schools - called 'private schools' or 'private lessons' in Turkey - after normal school hours, during which they will revise examination topics from previous years, learn to memorise important examination questions and improve their exam technique. To the Turkish students, success at state examinations will determine their future once and for all. Anyone who wish to enter highly regarded course of study or prestigeous schools will have to undergo intensive after-school 'private tuition' exercises in order to have a fair chance of success at state examinations.
Given the absolute significance of the state exmainations in Turkish socciety, middle-class parents will spend huge sums of money to send their children to expensive private tuition classes. Huge expectations mean that many turkish school kids and university students do not enjoy their school life, or they are forced by their parents to study hard for the exmainations.
The rigid nature of high school and college entrance examination, and the 'one battle settles all' attitude among the majority of parents and candidates, also provide for heated debates over the merit of determining one's future based on a 3-hour multiple-choice question test. In recent years, there are growing concerns about the effectiveness of Turkish education system as a whole and calls for the system to be overhauled have become louder.
One of the consequences of such tough university entrance examination is that Turkish school kids and high school students are left with very little time to pursue extra-curriculum activities which interest them. Many of them are so precoccupied with their studies and private tuitions that they do not seem to have time to care about politics or social issues that take place around them. It is not uncommon to meet students who have excelled at their respective fields of study but who have neither knowledge about the outside world nor sufficient interest in getting to know subject matters unfamiliar to them. In fact very few of them are in the position to conduct a conversation on the latest political, social or economic issues facing their own country. During my extended period of stay in Turkey, I had met only a small number of university graduates and students who are able to carry out a sustained discussions on current affairs - which kind of remind me of university graduates from Singapore, who know nothing except what had been published in the newspapers of their little city state and care even less for events that took place in the world outside.
No offence to the Turks, but I really hope the forthcoming education reform can bring about some changes in the attitude of parents and students in Turkey, at least to make their mind more open and more lively.
Copyrights 2008. All Rights Reserved.
To live among ordinary Turks is quite an enlightening experience. It gives me the opportunity to see a side of Turkey unknown to package tourists or seaside resort visitors.
Not many people outside of Turkey know that Turkey has one of the toughest high school and university entrance examinations systems in the world. Every year tens of thousands of students enter the OSS and OKS examinations and fight for a limited number of places - around 15% of the total number of candidates entering the exmainations each year - at one of the country's state universities and high schools. The tests are based on a series of multiple choice questions, to be answered within 3 hours. The results of these two examinations alone will determine if a student will go to the high school/university of his/her choice, as well as the subject he/she is allowed to study.
Given the extremely limited number of places available, it is hardly surprising that 'cram school culture', normally assoicated with countries with the highest stress factors in the world - notably Japan and Korea - also flourish in Turkey. Turkish school children attend cram schools - called 'private schools' or 'private lessons' in Turkey - after normal school hours, during which they will revise examination topics from previous years, learn to memorise important examination questions and improve their exam technique. To the Turkish students, success at state examinations will determine their future once and for all. Anyone who wish to enter highly regarded course of study or prestigeous schools will have to undergo intensive after-school 'private tuition' exercises in order to have a fair chance of success at state examinations.
Given the absolute significance of the state exmainations in Turkish socciety, middle-class parents will spend huge sums of money to send their children to expensive private tuition classes. Huge expectations mean that many turkish school kids and university students do not enjoy their school life, or they are forced by their parents to study hard for the exmainations.
The rigid nature of high school and college entrance examination, and the 'one battle settles all' attitude among the majority of parents and candidates, also provide for heated debates over the merit of determining one's future based on a 3-hour multiple-choice question test. In recent years, there are growing concerns about the effectiveness of Turkish education system as a whole and calls for the system to be overhauled have become louder.
One of the consequences of such tough university entrance examination is that Turkish school kids and high school students are left with very little time to pursue extra-curriculum activities which interest them. Many of them are so precoccupied with their studies and private tuitions that they do not seem to have time to care about politics or social issues that take place around them. It is not uncommon to meet students who have excelled at their respective fields of study but who have neither knowledge about the outside world nor sufficient interest in getting to know subject matters unfamiliar to them. In fact very few of them are in the position to conduct a conversation on the latest political, social or economic issues facing their own country. During my extended period of stay in Turkey, I had met only a small number of university graduates and students who are able to carry out a sustained discussions on current affairs - which kind of remind me of university graduates from Singapore, who know nothing except what had been published in the newspapers of their little city state and care even less for events that took place in the world outside.
No offence to the Turks, but I really hope the forthcoming education reform can bring about some changes in the attitude of parents and students in Turkey, at least to make their mind more open and more lively.
Copyrights 2008. All Rights Reserved.
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