Education in Turkey - Secondary Education

Secondary Education

Secondary education includes all of the general, vocational and technical education institutions that provide at least three years of education after primary school. Secondary education aims to give students minimum level of common knowledge, and to prepare them for higher education, for a vocation, for life and for business in line with their interests, skills and abilities. In the academic year 2001-2002 2.3 million students were being educated and 134,800 teachers were employed in 6,000 education institutions.

General secondary education covers the education of children between 15-17 for at least three years after primary education. General secondary education includes high schools, foreign language teaching high schools, Anatolia high schools, high schools of science, Anatolia teacher training high schools, and Anatolia fine arts high schools.

Vocational and technical secondary education involves the institutions that both raise students as manpower in business and other professional areas, prepare them for higher education and meet the objectives of general secondary education. Vocational and technical secondary education includes technical education schools for boys, technical education schools for girls, trade and tourism schools, religious education schools, multi-program high schools, special education schools, private education schools and health education schools.

Secondary education is often referred as high school education, since the schools are called lyceum (tr: lise).

In Public High Schools and Vocational High Schools, students attend six classes each day, which last for approximately 40 minutes each. In Anatolian High Schools and Private High Schools, the daily programme is typically longer, up to eight classes each day, also including a lunch period. All 9th graders are taught the same classes nationwide, with minor differences in certain cases. These classes are: Turkish language, Turkish literature, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geometry, World History, Geography, Religion & Ethics, Physical Education, a foreign language (in most cases English), a second foreign language (most commonly German but could be French, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, or Chinese).

When students enter the 10th grade, they typically choose one of four tracks: Turkish language–Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences, and Foreign Languages. In Vocational High Schools, no tracks are offered, while in Science High Schools only the Science tracks are offered. Different schools may have different policies; some, but not many, schools offer electives instead of academic tracks, giving students a wider range of options. For the 10th, 11th and 12th grade, the compulsory courses are: Turkish language, Turkish literature, Republican History and Religion & Ethics. In addition to that, students may be taught the following classes, depending on the track they choose and/or the high school they attend: Mathematics, Geometry, Statistics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Economy, Logic, Arts and Music, Traffic & Health, Computer, Physical Education, first and second foreign language.

The students used to be given a diploma for the academic track they had chosen, which gave them an advantage if they wanted to pursue their higher education in the corresponding fields, as the University Entrance Exam scores were weighted according to the student's track. (e.g. A Science student would have an advantage over a Turkish-Mathematics student when applying for Medicine). As of the 2010-2011 Educational Year, all high school students are given the standard High School Diploma.

At the end of high school, following the 12th grade, students take a High School Finishing Examination and they are required to pass this in order to take the University Entrance Exam and continue their studies at a university. There are four score types for different academic fields, including but not limited to:

• Turkish language–Mathematics: International Relations, Law, Education, Psychology, Economy, Business Management, and the like.
• Science: Engineering, Computer Science, Medicine, and other Science related professions.
• Social Sciences: History, Geography, and Education.
• Foreign Languages: Language/Linguistics and language teaching.