TRABZON PROVINCIAL DIRECTORATE OF NATIONAL EDUCATION

“Improving Employment Opportunities in the Labour Market for Marginalised Communities” 10-12 June 2012 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING IN TURKEY

Completing a quality primary education for everyone is among the leading targets of Turkey.

Significant gains in schooling were realized with continuous effort of public and non-governmental organizations by various campaigns. But schooling is not a unique dimension to this objective.

Another important dimension is to ensure completion of primary and secondary education for children.

To ensure this, a research named “Policies aiming at Monitoring of Primary Schools in Turkey to Prevent Dropout “ was conducted within this project and the issue of school leaving was handled.

In Turkey, the primary school legislation not only regulates the dropout but also school absenteeism.

According to our legislation, even if the school absenteeism is continuos, it is not the cause of severance.

Therefore , children leaving the school without completing their age are seen as being registered. This makes the detection of what extent is the dropout impossible and the situation harder to resolve.

School leaving is one of the important issues of education system in Turkey and it is limited to situations that leave the school at eight years’ compulsory education in primary schools.

Eight year primary education started in the period 1997-1998, covers children aged 614 .It is compulsory for boys and girls and free in state schools for all citizens.

Enrollment rates in 2003 was a total of 8.2%, for males 90.9% and 85.2% for females. This improvement is important.

Studies show that although students participate in the school register ,a certain percentage leave school for various reasons.

Clear, comprehensive and comparable definitions do not exist in the international arena relating to school leaving.

Differences in definitons focus on how long and why the student remains seperate from the system , what ages and grade levels he/she leaves school.

However,in the international arena,school leaving, in general,is defined as termination of a diploma.

In Turkey, a definition entitled primary school drop-out do not exist within the existing legal framework . The reason for this is that primary education is compulsory and school absenteeism is defined instead.

Within the existing legal framework , the students are also given when to cut their relationship with primary schools.

Accordingly, the reasons for legal severance with primary schools: death, receiving the report due to health reasons, not being within compulsory school age dates.

In the 9.Five-Year Development Plan main document ,prepared by State Plannning Organization and entered into force and publication in the official gazette , reducing dropout rates have been targeted in 2007-2013 period in primary schools under the heading The Education Strategies and Goals.

In recent years ,it has been realised that school dropouts are increasing day by day. The issue of school dropouts which has arisen with this increase has a lot of economic and social impacts.

Drop-out condition has a complex structure in terms of its reasons. The reasons for school leaving can be classified and handled as it follows; the appreciation of school, school size/ small or big, parents’ educaion level, perceived socio-economic education level, relationships with teachers.

STUDIES IN TURKEY It is a study made by AÇEV aiming to reveal the general state of school leaving. According to the results of this study, a standard lack of definition is available on the issue of school leaving. The powers of school boards and the institutional and operational capacity of schools is limited to prevent it.

In the findings from other causes of school dropouts economic,social, cultural and family, bureaucratic and political, education system and school related conditions were given. Besides , the economic situation is especially emphasized to be the determining factor for school leaving.

School leaving has been examined according to different types of high schools.In this respect vocational school dropouts are specified to be much more than the others.Secondary school dropout rate is 11.3% of the general, vocational and technical high schools is 18.2%.

Also students with limited circles are indicated to be risk groups in terms of dropout. Having families with socio-economic problems increase the risk of dropout for students. Education in overcrowded classrooms is pointed out to trigger school dropout.

In the school dropout report prepared by UNICEF,it is defined that there has been a decrease in the number of school leavers in rural areas and third grade primary school as well as 14.8% and 22.4% decrease respectively in female and male students dropouts.

THE RELATIONSHIP WITH SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS

The likelihood of dropouts depends on the relationship between parents and students. The school dropout problem is related to a large extent to the characteristics of school as an institution.

The quality of the school decreases the risk of dropouts. The structure of the classes is likely to determine the drop-out rates. Inadequate physical conditions might cause students to have a critical attitude towards the school. The size of school population has a negative effect on young people.

The type of training in the school also affects the dropout.In schools providing higher career training the rate of dropout is low in relation to educational expectation and desire.However, schools providing low career training are those experiencing the dropouts most.

THE RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS OF FAMILY Poverty affects people in education as in other areas of life. Poverty is particularly important to the completion or interruption of education. For this reason, poverty is justified to increase the risk of dropout.

Families are the most important and necessary supporters of the student’s school life.Taking the positive contribution of families to education into consideration, families in rural areas are insufficient.

Coming from rural areas affects education in terms of both economic and cultural opportunities. It has been proved that educational opportunities and expectations for children in rural areas are lower than those of living in other areas.

TEACHER RELATIONSHIP According to the findings of this research , teacher support has more effect on middle school students compared to high school students.Because high school students rely more on the support of group friends.Since secondary students are in the adolescence period, the teachers are more likely to become a role model and have an effect on their personality.

FRIEND-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP Young is affected by the actions or dropouts of close friends.As a result of a survey on dropout, it has been revealed that students excluded and rejected by friends are more absent from school and less successful. It’s also revealed that those threatened and disturbed by other students do not attend school.

SOLUTION SEEKING In accordance with all surveys, the following recommendations were made: *Providing scholarships to high school students with low-income can be effective in reducing the tendency of dropping out of school. *Through adult education programs , families can be informed so that they are able to be denied not to leave school.

*Generalizing guidance services in schools will reduce the tendency of dropping out of school. *Programs in academic achievement, attendance tracking applications,counselling services,educational after-school clubs,peer instructive,assertiveness training,prevention and intervention methods as alternative school programs can be used.