Centrally governed by the Ministry of National Education, the current education system in Turkey is summarized as “4+4+4” (4 years of primary education, 4 years of secondary- and 4 years of high school education). Following the first eight years of compulsory education, there is a centralized exam that determines students’ ability to enter high schools (lise). There is tremendous competition for entering into the leading, mostly private (meaning highly expensive) high schools.
The entrance into the university is also conditioned upon achieved scores in another centralized exam. High schools (lise) are perceived as the preparation period for the university entrance exam. The preparation process for the university entrance exam is not only a money-consuming process but also a very stressful one. In other words, education in Turkey comprises a very competitive system based on centralized exams.
Privatization of education had been transforming the education system since the 1980s, and especially from the 2000s on (with the consecutive rule of the Justice and Development Party- Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP), governments had been largely following privatization policies. The Law No. 5580 – the Private Education Law – which facilitated the opening of private schools in 2007, was complemented in 2014 by a system of grants funding private schools, which brought about skyrocketing numbers of private schools. This privatization process exacerbated the already existing inequalities in access to and achievement in education.
