The field monitoring report on Education sector for year 2020, prepared by the Research Center for Education Policy (EPAM), which operates under the umbrella of the İLKE Science and Culture and Education Foundation (İLKE), was presented before the public through a live broadcast on Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Besides covering the developments that have taken place in the field of education in year 2020, in a holistic manner in 2020, the report also includes several issues from the field that have not been addressed previously.

The report was presented by EPAM’s Coordinator İbrahim Hakan Karataş and ILKE’s Executive Board Member Foundation Board Member Yusuf Alpaydın in a live broadcast moderated by İLKE’s Researcher M. Hüseyin Ergören.

The report comprises different sections including expert opinions, overview of the education sector, statistical information related to its different dimension, a chronological chart and prediction about sector’s progress in the near future. In light of its current progress and challenges the report also make several recommendations to achieve improvements in education.

Some prominent highlights from the report are as follows:

Public and private schooling in 2020

In the year 2019-2020, enrolment in preschool was recorded at 41.78% among 3 year olds, 52.41% among 4 year olds, 71.22% among 5 year olds, 93.62% in primary schools, 95.9% in secondary schools, 85.01% in high schools and 43.37% at higher education institutions.

91.2% of students are enrolled in public schools while 8.8% in private schools. 26% of students attending private schools are enrolled in pre-school educational institutions, 17% in primary schools, 22% in secondary schools, 35% in high schools of which 7% of the students were attending vocational institutes while the remaining 28% were enrolled at general high schools.

Budget and financing of education in 2020

In 2020, a teacher received an average net monthly wage of 5500 ₺, while for each student an average 6590 ₺ was spent in basic education, 7636 ₺ in secondary education and 14020 ₺ in higher education.

Covid-19 outbreak revealed some problems in the education system

It was seen that the education system was not sufficient in terms of infrastructure, human resources, content, structure and management in terms of using the modern technology functionally. In the 2020, a report from Turkish Ministry of revealed that certain targets planned for 2020 were postponed due to the epidemic while some others were partially realized.

2020 has been a year when priorities changed

Although it was announced that the draft Teaching Profession Law was submitted to the Presidency, there was no development during 2020. There has been no development regarding the system revision that will bring to the organizational structure of the education system the desired flexibility and quality.

To access full version of Field Monitoring Report on Education 2020 and similar publications please visit www.ilke.org.tr/air.