Post on 08-Mar-2023
Energy Education Science and Technology Part B: Social and Educational Studies
2013 Volume (issue) 5(1): 159-170
Turkish economy and vocational education
system: Regressive or progressive?1
Bulent Tarman1,*, Mehmet Fatih Yigit2
1Konya University, Faculty of Education, Department of Primary Education, Konya, Turkey 2Suleyman Sah University, Istanbul, Turkey
Received: 16 October 2011; accepted: 13 December 2011
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to focus on the importance of quality education for making labor force
competitive. By analyzing current data from the Ministry of Education, Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) reports, and Turkish Employment Organization (İŞKUR), the
authors aim to find how the Turkish labor force can be improved by effective education reforms. This
research study is qualitative in nature and does content/item analysis of a large quantitative data obtained
from “Strengthening the Vocational Education and Training System in Turkey” (SVET) survey. We
believe that a high-standard education system and improved economy are correlated with each other. We
also believe that it is much more important for Turkey, as a candidate country for European Union (EU),
to have a strong economy and education system. For that reason, the authors propose that in order to have
a strong economy, vocational and technical schools need drastic changes.
Keywords: Vocational education and training; Turkey; Quality education; Economy; Labor; Social skills
©Sila Science. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
It is widely believed that jobs require more and more advanced skills and, as a result,
employees need to upgrade their skills or risk losing out in the competition for jobs in the new
economy of today’s global world. It is also evident that most countries in the world realize that
good initial vocational education and training has a major contribution to make to economic
competitiveness [1-25]. Researches show that the reason why many of these unemployed workers
might be considered "unemployable in a modern economy" is their comparatively low level of
education [8]. In our study, we focus on the importance of quality education for making labor
force competitive. By analyzing current data from the Ministry of Education, Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports, and Turkish Employment
____________ *Corresponding author. +90(507) 310-4933 E-mail address: btarman@selcuk.edu.tr (B. Tarman). 1This paper is presented at the 54th CIES Annual Conference: "Reimagining Education" Comparative and
International Education Society, March 1-5, 2010 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 160
Organization (ISKUR), we aim to find how the Turkish labor force can be improved by effective
education reforms. We believe that a high-standard education system and improved economy are
correlated with each other. We also believe that it is much more important for Turkey, as a
candidate country for European Union (EU), to have a strong economy and education system. For
that reason, we propose that in order to have a strong economy, vocational and technical schools
need drastic changes [21-23].
Education is the leading factor of a strong economy. The role of vocational education and
training (VET) is important in raising skills, knowledge and competencies of high and low skilled
workers as well as labor market fledglings [3].Thus Turkish governors should focus on new
policies regarding vocational education and training institutions. We claim that a strong economy
and a productive education system are strongly bounded to each other. In order to have a strong
economy and healthy society, we claim that early recruitment into work, and conducting aptitude
tests will play essential roles. However the reality that many young people cannot make their best
decision when they are 14-15 years old should not be ignored and general academic skills and
vocational skills should be balanced at the beginning of vocational education training so that
students can find their ways into other areas, including academic works at universities [12].This
means that sufficient attention should be given to general academic skills as well as practical
skills.
2. Theoretical framework
The role of education in today’s global society is very complex. The schooling transforms the
individuals in a number of ways. It provides the individual not only with social skills for
becoming a responsible nationally and globally competent citizen but also with specific
professional vocational skills to be used in the world of work. There has been an explicit
emphasis in labor-market-related educational goals in many countries. Titles like ‘The transition
from education to work’, ‘Preparation for adult life’, ‘Strengthening vocational education and the
curricula’ are just couple examples of the themes of national and international conferences
[14].The concern about education and work is not new. In the early 1960s the same theme was
cast in terms of ‘education for economic growth’ and education was considered a kind of
investment that would help national income to increase. The theme ‘education for economic
growth’ had two characteristics that have diminished over time: economic efficiency and
aggregation. Later the emphasis has shifted towards income distribution and disaggregation with
youth unemployment as a major social issue that caused the recent interest in the relationship
between education and labor market [14]. There exists a host of theoretical reasons about why
youth unemployment and education might be related. The most obvious reason is that of a
mismatch between supply and demand, i.e., the school system (supply side) does not adequately
prepare its graduates for the world of work (demand side). Another reason at the intersection of
education and the labor market is that of credentializm (or screening or certification).
There is no economy in the world that can afford to neglect education. OECD studies show
that one additional year of education in the OECD area, over time, generally increases economic
output by between 3 and 6% [9]. Therefore, The EU plays an enhancing and complementary role
in the field of education, with its policies geared to increasing the quality of education across
Europe and promoting it inside the EU and worldwide. Daniel Gros, Director at the Centre for
European Policy Studies (CEPS), [4] points to the need for more investment in education in order
to improve EU citizens’ skills and eventually affect the employment rate that was set as a goal of
the Lisbon strategy with 70% employment rate by 2010. In this paper, we are going to examine
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 161
the unemployment problem in Turkey and approach it from the perspective of the goal of the
Lisbon strategy.
3. Background information about Turkey
The private sector in Turkey is strong and rapidly growing. Especially beginning from the
early 1980s, there have been important attempts to liberalize and integrate the country’s economy
in a global perspective. Signing of Custom Unions with the EU in 1996 is regarded an important
step in this direction. Turkey not only has a strategic position between Europe and Asia, but also
plays an important role in gathering the economies of Eastern Europe and Asian countries
together. The per capita income of Turkey is a clear indicator of how the country has faced
economic developments in the last ten years. If we look at the per capita income in 1997, we see
that it was $3.130 whereas in 2008, the the per capita income increased to $10.745 (World
Development Indicator Database, 2008) which is an important development for the
modernization of the country.
Modernization and growth is not only seen in certain fields, but it is extended to almost all the
economic sectors in Turkey, especially in industrial sector, tourism, transportation, finance and
commerce that have faced important improvements in terms of being considered among the
economic sectors of the developed nations in the world. Those improvements in economic sectors
revealed the need for trained and knowledgeable manpower that could handle the problems
coming with new developments and this process created new labor market demand. At this point,
the gap between the training provided by vocational training system and the real needs in the
labor market became clearer [3].
The 9th five-year Development Plan (2007-2013) explicitly mentions the problems in
vocational institutions and says: “The reasons that the employment rate of vocational institutions graduates is low and there is lack of
demand to those institutions are that there is disconnection between the curriculum of vocational high
schools and vocational colleges and the vocational education programs are not updated according to the
demand of labor market” (The 9th five-year Development Plan).
The 9th five-year Development Plan also criticizes the test-driven education system in the
country and says that as a result of having a test-driven education system, it becomes difficult to
reach the desired levels in terms of educational success and big amounts of money is spent on
supplementary educational activities that leads to have economic, social, and psychological
problems in family institutions. In fact, official reports show that Turkey is not alone with this
problem. When we look at the EU countries, a large number of young people leave education
institutions without having acquired the skills needed for a smooth transition into employment.
Nearly one in six young people in the EU are early school leavers. Member States aim to reduce
this figure to an average of 10% by 2010, but it is uncertain whether this can be achieved. One in
four young adults (ages 25-29) has not completed upper secondary education level. Surveys point
to considerable deficiencies in pupils' mastery of basic literacy and numeracy skills, which
constitute a serious obstacle to progression into vocational training or higher education, leaving
them to face a precarious future in society and the modern labor market [13].
The 9th five-year Development Plan proposes a solution to have enough manpower for the
real needs in the labor market and says that data about education, employment, and current jobs
of households will be gathered in order to analyze how to solve the problem of lack of qualified
individuals for the labor market.
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 162
4. Method/data
This research study is qualitative in nature and does content/item analysis of a large
quantitative data. In our study, we employ the data from “Strengthening the Vocational Education
and Training System in Turkey” (SVET) survey. In this survey, 5651 private, public, and
government institutions have been interviewed face-to-face and the results are presented
according to those interviews. The SVET project collects data by using survey in order to assess
the demand needs of labor market in the 30 provinces in Turkey. As for structure of the
questionnaire, the data is collected by implementing a method of face-to-face interviewing. The
sampling procedure used in the survey is not random sampling. In order to provide a ood sample
frame, the quality, characteristics and availability for sampling of the business registers of TUIK,
SSK, TESK, TOBB, BAGKUR and the Ministry of Finance were analyzed (Labor Market and
Skill Needs Survey, 2005). We are using this survey data because it is the most recent data that
have been collected in 2006. Most data sources used in this report, stem from the statistics and
surveys of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜIK), in particular the Household Labor Force
Surveys (HLFS) and the latest Census of the Population.
Usually labor market assessments cover both quantitative and qualitative aspects in a single
study. In this study, the concentration of quantitative analysis is on measuring labor market
developments in terms of employment and vacancies to be able to provide estimations for future
educational improvements. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis of this survey is presented
to give recommendations to educational institutions in order to choose the best curricula and
educational programs in future.
The reason that Labor Market and Skills Needs Analysis Survey (LM/SNA) is chosen is
reported to be “the need for generating accurate and large-scale information in the 30 SVET
provinces for the job families covered by the project” [15]. One of the important characteristics
of Turkish labor market is that there is lack of willingness in terms of having relationship
between vocational education institutions and employers. This survey looks and tests the
willingness of employers to get closer to vocational institutions but the main focus of the survey
is to look at the skill needs and identify skill needs problems of employees (Labor Market and
Skill Needs Survey, 2005).
A summary of the subjects included in the survey is the followings: Employers assessment of employment developments in their companies and expectations for the nearest
future;
Problems in filling vacancies with qualified staff
Labor mobility at company level: degree hiring of employees by companies as well as degree of outflow
(for natural, voluntary and involuntary reasons totally)
Assessment of the economic situation and economic perspective by companies within their sector
Skill problems of existing staff
Actions taken by companies to train their employees;
Assessment of VET graduate qualities
Assessment of the value of apprentices and interns for companies.
5. Findings
The survey conducted by Svet (labor market team) and ISKUR (employment department)
includes 40 main topics in which there are many other sub-categories under those main areas for
each provinces included in the study. The main sections of the survey are as follow:
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 163
Table 1. The main areas that the survey covers 1- Companies and employees per region and sector
2- Expected employment development by company size, region and sector,
3- Occupations for which respondent expect changes in employment by region,
4- Occupations for which respondent expect changes in employment by sector,
5- Vacancy rate by region, sector and company size,
6- Number of unfilled vacancies by preference for gender and by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
7- Number of unfilled vacancies by region by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
8- Number of unfilled vacancies by sector and by\ occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
9- Requirements for bottleneck vacancies by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
10 Hiring rate by region, sector and company size,
11- Newly hired personnel by gender and by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
12- Newly hired personnel by region and by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
13- Newly hired personnel by sector and by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
14- Firing rates by region, sector and company size,
15- Personnel that left the company by region and by occupational (ISCO 3 digit),
16- Personnel that left the company by sector and by occupational group (ISCO 3 digit),
17- Capacity utilization rate by region and sector,
18- Opinion on capacity utilization by region and sector,
19- Reasons for not working at full capacity by region and sector,
20- Expectations about changes in capacity use by region and sector,
21-Reasons to expect an increase in capacity utilization by region and sector,
22- Reasons to expect a decrease in capacity utilization by region and sector,
23- Investment purposes by region and sector,
24- Opinion of companies on the economic situation of the sector by region and sector,
25- Skill problems by skill type, region and sector,
26- Skill problems per occupational group (ISCO 3-digit), % distribution over skill types,
27- Technical skill problems by region and sector, % distribution per skill type,
28- Technical skill problems by occupational group (ISCO 3-digit), % distribution per skill type,
29- Language problems by region and sector, % distribution by language,
30- Language problems by occupational group (ISCO 3-digit), % distribution by language,
31- Enterprises and employees involved in training by region and sector,
32- Companies and employees involved in technical courses by sector, % distribution over course type,
33- Companies and employees involved in language training by sector, % distribution over language,
34- Companies that hire VET graduates and number of recruited VET graduates by region and sector,
35- Assessment of VET graduates by skill type and sector,
36- Companies where apprentices worked by region, sector and company size,
37- Apprentices by region, sector and company size,
38- Companies that train interns by region, sector and company size,
39- Number of interns by company size and sector
40- Opinions of companies that train interns by region, sector and company size.
*Labour Market and Skill Needs Survey 2005, An enterprise survey for 31 provinces of Turkey.
During the analysis process of the data, we looked at the assessment criteria of vocational
education training graduates by skill type and sector and we found that for the sixteen sectors,
which are presented in table 2, the three important criteria are willingness to learn (%38.8),
ability to adapt to working environment (%28.62), and willingness to work hard (%22.37). An
important finding that we are going to talk about in the discussion section is that, foreign
language efficiency is not to be seen among the priorities of employers when hiring vocational
education graduates. The mean for that is only %2.37 which is relatively low compared to other
criteria (Table 2).
Vocational education training is composed of theoretical knowledge and practical skills.
Without theoretical knowledge, practical skills might not work properly, or vice versa. Having
practical skills is crucial for VET graduates to find jobs and to meet the needs of the labor
market. However, as we see in the Table 2, 26% of the employers find the VET students’
practical skills low while 51% of the employers find them normal skilled. Even though having
normal skill level might not sound like a problem, it should be taking into consideration that
almost 78% of the employers are not very satisfied with the VET graduates. By implementing
effective education reforms, most of the problems reported by employers in Table 2 can be
solved even though they might take time.
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 164
Table 2. Assessment of VET graduates by skill types Opinion of employers
Low Normal High Quality
26 51 23 Practical skills
21 57 22 Social and communication skills
43 49 9 Administrative skills
81 17 2 Foreign Language skills
35 52 14 Client-orientedness
11 48 40 Willingness to learn
30 52 18 Computer skills
8 61 31 Ability to adopt to a work environment
28 50 22 Willingness to work hard
56 26 17 Educational competencies
100 0 0 Law information
0 0 100 Learning skills
43 28 29 Operational skills
0 0 100 Teaching skills
43 32 25 Teaching drawing skills
9 91 0 Tools and equipment skills
31 64 5 Vocational competencies
Source: Labor Market and Skill Needs Survey, 2005.
We have mentioned above that sufficient attention should be given to general skills as
well as practical skills. Strong numeracy and literacy skills are the general skills that should be
taken into consideration during Vocational Education Trainings as well as practical skills so that
probability of unemployment can be reduced. Data from International Adult Literacy Survey
show that people with low literacy are more likely to lose their job (Figure 1). Also an increasing
number of jobs require general skills and those skills can be gained and improved by good
literacy and numeracy skills [6]. This finding shows us that practical training and general
knowledge training, including numeracy and literacy, should be balanced in VET institutions to
make sure that students are trained both theoretically and practically that will help them to find
the job that fits them best. Reforms that should be planned and implemented should take account
the importance of technological change and complexity of teaching and communication skills in
the world. By preparing programs according to the realities of the world, the VET programs can
help students to compete with the rapidly and unpredictably changing labor market needs.
Fig. 1 Probability of unemployment and literacy proficiency Probability of being unemployed according to prose literacy score, for men aged 16-25 with
less than upper secondary education, 1994-
1998
Source: OECD and Statistics Canada (2000), Literacy in the Information Age. Final Report of
the International Adult Literacy Survey, OECD, Paris.
Soft skills, such as social and communication skills, client orientedness, ability to adapt to a
work environment, willingness to learn, reliability, adequate manners, and work ethic have
become important predictors of getting job for employees in many countries (Schneeberger &
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 165
Nowak [12].). What help those soft skills to be gained are workplaces where students get in touch
with customers/employers and live in the real world instead of just practicing in a classroom
environment [12].
The findings show that there is a strong preference toward choosing male employees rather
than female. Among the occupations included in the survey, the mean score for specifically
female choice is 7.31% whereas it is 49.52% for male employees. However an average of 43.13%
of the answers to gender choice says that it does not matter for employees (Table 3).
Table 3. Gender preference in filling vacancy Employers prefer the vacancy to be filled by (%) Occupations (ISCO 88)
Male Female Doesn’t matter
52 12 36 Total
Source: Labor Market and Skill Needs Survey, 2005.
When we look at the hiring rate by region, sector, and company size, rate of newly hired
personnel for Hotels and restaurants sector is %39, for construction sector is %33.3, and for
manufacture of machinery sector is 26.1. The lowest hiring rate is in public utilities, %8.1. Hotels
and restaurants, construction, and manufacture of machinery sectors are not only the first three
sectors in which hiring rate is the highest, they also represent the first three sectors in which
firing rate is also the highest; %34 in construction sector, %30 in hotels and restaurants sector,
and %20 in manufacture of machinery. On the other hand, public utilities sector has the lowest
firing rate of %7. For all the sectors shown in Table 5, lack of domestic demand is the most
striking reason of not working in full capacity. The other two reasons are general economic
situation of Turkey and economic situation of the sector. However the results show that almost all
the sectors are optimistic about their future (Table 4). Among the reasons to expect an increase in
capacity utilization are domestic demand, foreign demand, and new investment, economic
situation of the sector and of the country.
Table 4. Expectations about changes in capacity use by sector
Total Number
of Companies
Response (%
of total)
Expectation on capacity utilization
Total Will increase Will decrease Will be the same Sector
76106 46 100 74 14 12 Total
504 49 100 72 8 20 Mining & quarrying
2371 46 100 66 23 10 Manufacture of food products
10090 47 100 52 27 22 Textile and leather industry
3065 47 100 79 14 7 Manufacture of wood products
2419 55 100 89 2 9 Chemical & Oil Industry
3995 57 100 74 13 13 Metal Industry
3064 57 100 71 19 10 Manufacture of machinery
1208 58 100 80 7 13 Manufacture of transport equipment
384 37 100 65 5 30 Public Utilities
5839 34 100 63 27 11 Construction
19131 41 100 81 11 8 Wholesale & retail trade
5309 54 100 76 7 17 Hotels & Restaurants
4225 48 100 72 16 12 Transport & telecommunication
4374 41 100 92 0 8 Financial Services
3546 46 100 71 9 20 Real Estate & Business
6582 42 100 84 8 8 Health & Public service
Source: Labor Market and Skill Needs Survey, 2005.
Social and communication skills seem to be the most important type of skill problem that the
sixteen sectors reported. We get a mean of 26.25% for social and communication skill problem,
whereas it is 13% for management skill problems, and only 10% for computer problems.
Financial and budgeting skill has the lowest rate of report for as low as 3.75%. The most
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 166
important finding of the survey is to give the distribution of reported skill problems over
technical and professional skills. The results of the survey explicitly show that the two problems
that are most important are theoretical knowledge, and vocational competencies. An average of
34% of the sectors report that they have problems with their employees regarding vocational
competencies, while that rate for theoretical knowledge is 36%. Other skill problems like foreign
language skills, learning skills, and organizational skills have little importance compared to the
first two categories.
Table 5. The sectors involved in the survey Mining & quarrying Construction
Manufacture of food products Wholesale & retail trade
Textile & leather industry Hotels & restaurants
Manufacture of wood products Transport & telecommunication
Chemical & oil industry Financial services
(Non) Metal industry Real estate & business
Manufacture of machinery Health & public service
Manufacture of transport equipment Public utilities
In Table 2, we have mentioned the assessment of VET graduates by skill types by giving the
opinions of employers. When we read the Table 2 and Table 4 carefully, we see that the labor
market needs people and analyze them based on the expectations about changes in capacity use
by sector. In Table 2, 81% of the employers has said that the VET graduates have low level of
skills in terms of speaking a foreign language. And when we look at Table 5, we see that the jobs
that require a foreign language are the top ones that employers are expecting changes in capacity
use in near future. Those sectors are financial services, wholesale and retail trade, manufacture of
transport equipment, hotels and restaurants, and chemical and oil industry.
6. Discussion and conclusion
Based on the data obtained through the SVET survey, the most mentioned skill problem is
social and communication skills (27% of all answers) in terms of the share of a skill type in the
total number of mentioned skill problems. This skill is closely related with the social science and
studies courses that students have been taking through their education since it facilitates in
learners the attainment of knowledge, develops skills and promotes desirable attitudes needed to
function as informed, productive citizens. So, the question is how and why these courses do not
prepare our students adequately? Or what is the reason that our students are not able to get
enough social and communication skills for the job market? As this problem is founded in 2005
via the survey, what have the officials (policy makers, school administrators, officers of Higher
Educational Institutions) been doing to address this skill problem?
Turkey has been trying to address those issues by making reforms in its educational system to
meet with the EU standards such as curriculum, textbooks, teacher preparation programs etc. [16,
17]. Special attention is given to the recent curriculum reform of 2005 and the new Social Studies
textbooks that have been redesigned as an aspect of Turkey's seeking admission to the European
Union. The Ministry of Education policy statements about the new curriculum and textbooks
involve a claim that they promote critical thinking and open-mindedness, along with a student-
centered approach [1].
Also, several initiatives took place to improve the teacher quality by changing the teacher
education curricula. The policy makers in Turkey took the action to revise the existing national
teacher education curricula, including elementary social studies courses to increase the level of
schooling [5] to get students graduated with the required skills by the labor market.
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 167
All this data and recent developments show that reforms in Turkish educational system are not
enough. Turkey still needs strategic and drastic reforms in order to compete in international arena
with other developed and developing countries. This means that a second need to alter
institutions fundamentally is inescapable. Much of the discussion of development policy today
focuses most attention on ensuring that everybody is in school regardless of the learning that goes
on. It is inevitable to have “Diploma Disease” if we continue to educate people for a piece of
paper as it can be understood from our analysis. The important thing is to provide quality
education to prepare our students for the job market and real world conditions with the required
skills. There is the need to take into account the goals, structure and practices and realities of
Turkish education or any country that seeks to reform its assessment if indeed the Diploma
Disease is to be combated. The point of departure is for examination system to re-examine its
philosophies and practices with a view to facilitate the transformation of the tasks of schooling in
Turkey from ‘educating to get a job’ to ‘educating to do a job’ – i.e. effectively combating the
Diploma Disease.
It is unquestionable that the best policy reform for an education system is to increase years of
schooling and quality of education at the same time. However, these two goals usually cannot be
achieved at the same time due to the nature of policy reforms. For that reason, we argue that
instead of focusing on years of schooling, the Turkish Education reformers should concentrate on
dealing with the current problems of education and increasing the quality of educational
institutions.
Policies for promoting education and lifelong learning have to be adjusted for employability to
changes in the economy and society. Joint employment and education policies should increase
participation of adults in lifelong learning. Lifelong learning is essential, not only for the
competitiveness, and economic success of the countries who suffer, but also for social inclusion,
employability, active citizenship and personal accomplishment of people. Individuals must be
able to update and balance their knowledge, competences and skills throughout life [8].
According to the data “other skill types that were mentioned often are: management skills
(13%), elementary and basic skills (13%), work planning skills (11%) and ICT skills (10%)”
[15].There is no doubt in the 21st century that ICT skills and knowledge are becoming
increasingly vital to be able to participate in society. Adults without ICT skills, confidence and
access to technology are at serious risk of being excluded. To improve these skills, Turkish
government has increased the number of ICT classes at schools. To meet the need for computers
in ICT classes, 200,000 computers have been provided through the “Support Campaign
Computer Assisted Education” with the voluntary contributions of individuals and companies as
well as 206,000 computers purchased by the MONE and given to schools by 2006 [7]. According
to the Ministry of National Education’s report (2008), as of beginning of 2006-07 school year, 86
percent of primary education students and 95 percent of secondary education students have
access to Internet. Construction of infrastructure still continues in rural areas that lack necessary
infrastructure. However, although providing internet access is one of the important steps, it is not
enough by itself without having qualified teachers to teach and help students to develop their ICT
skills. Also having access to internet does not mean that all students have access to internet
anytime they want. As we have shown above, the number of computers per student is too low for
Turkey compared to OECD countries.
We have mentioned above that practical and general skills teaching should be balanced in
order to help VET graduates to easily adopt the situations out there. Looking at Table 6, we see
that time spent in practical training as ration of total program in Turkey is between 50%-75%,
which might be thought as an example to our suggestion. Having said that, one might claim that
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 168
there is balance between time spent in practical training and general skills (literacy and
numeracy) in Turkish VET institutions. However it should be analyzed in depth to what extent
practical skills and general skills are taught in VET institutions in real life.
Table 6. Time spent in practical training as ratio of total program
75% or more Between 50%
and 75% Between 25% and
50%
Less than 25%
Varies depending on institutions, programmes, fields, etc.
Australia*
Austria - Belgium (Flanders) - -
Czech Republic - - - Denmark - - - - Finland - - - - France - - - Germany - - - Hungary - - Netherlands
Norway - - -
Sweden - - - - Switzerland - -
Turkey - - - United States - - - -
*Most upper secondary vocational programs are outside the school sector.
Source: Kuczera, M. , The OECD International Survey of VET Systems, OECD, Paris.
Note: Estimated percentage of vocational upper secondary programmes: - 0%; 1-25%; 26-50%; 51-75%; 76-100%;
We propose some suggestions for educational reform that, we think, will have positive effects
on labor market in Turkey. Our proposal includes two major points: Early recruitment into work,
and aptitude tests.
Early prevention is a key investment. More quality vocational education and training is
necessary, but providing additional pathways linked to the world of work, providing
apprenticeships or other combination of programs that look to motivate and encourage students
towards completion are also important. As an example, providing different levels of curriculum
depending on the need of the specific programs rather than having generic knowledge levels
implies a “Flexi-education,” which means that there are pathways across the systems and that
there are no dead ends [10].
We know that educational reforms do not occur in one night and the process is exhausting and
time-consuming. However, there are many advantageous of early recruitment. Some of those
advantageous are; a cure for uneducated unemployment, solution for shortage of middle-level
man-power, more mature students, and greater flexibility in school curriculum [2]. However, one
should be aware of the possible objections to the idea of early recruitment. Those objections can
be categorized as follows; loss of a dynamic spin-off, the bureaucratization of society, objective
and subjective criteria, increase in training but decrease in education, and it is too costly [2].
Our second point in education reform is related to the current student selection system. The
system that is now implemented tests the achievements of the students instead of their skills.
Students are learning the things that are being asked in tests instead of the knowledge that they
will really need in their life. We believe that implementing aptitude tests instead of achievement
tests will increase the communication between labor market and educational institutions.
Curriculums will be designed according to the needs of labor market so that the students
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 169
graduated from vocational high schools or colleges will be tested about whether they meet the
requirements of labor market or not.
7. Contribution and future direction
According to the OECD’s initial report [10].about the Learning for Jobs; “in recent years, vocational education and training (VET) has become a policy priority in OECD
countries. There are three main reasons. First, VET has an important economic function,
providing trade, technical and professional skills for the workforce. Second, there are signs of
emerging strains in VET systems, including a lack of workplace training places and a shortage of
vocational trainers and teachers. Third, VET has been neglected in the past, certainly by analysts,
but also to some extent in the policy arena.”
The same OECD report [10].indicates that “many vocational skills, particularly practical
skills, can in principle be learnt on the job by employees. But firms may be unwilling to invest in
training for different reasons, because they fear poaching, or are too small and specialized to
provide broad enough training to give a young person a good start in working life. High
minimum wages and other labor market regulations may make it more attractive for an employer
to hire trained workers than to train raw recruits. For these reasons and others, it often makes
sense for governments to provide vocational training to young people”.
Therefore OECD prepared an initial report “to help governments shape their policies so that
they teach the right mix of skills to meet labor market needs, so that they prepare their teachers
and trainers well, and that they make full and effective use of workplace training. In addition,
countries need to fully engage employers and trade unions to support policy development and
implementation”. Turkey should also consider this report carefully since vocational education
system in Turkey has important problems that need to be addressed in order to increase the living
standards in the country. We analyzed large sets of data and the findings show overall what
Turkish labor market and Vocational education system need to improve. Substantial support (165
million €) has been provided under EU programs in the area of basic education and vocational
education and training. This assistance has included policy advice, curriculum development, as
well as equipment and infrastructure investments in 2009. Therefore, further studies are needed to
analyze this financial support and its outcomes from internal/external perspectives.
B. Tarman, M. F. Yigit / EEST Part B: Social and Educational Studies 5 (2013) 159-170 170
References
[1] Cayir K. Preparing Turkey for the European Union: Nationalism, National Identity and 'Otherness' in
Turkey's New Textbooks, J Intercul Stud 2009;30:39-55.
[2] Dore R. The Diploma Disease. Education, Qualification, and Development. Institute of Education
University of London, 1997.
[3] European Training Foundation. Achieving Lisbon Goals. The Contribution of Vocational Education
and Training in Turkey, 2004.
[4] Gros D. Employment and competitiveness: the key role of education. Center for European Policy
Studies, (CEPS) Policy Brief No: 93, February, 2006.
[5] HEC. (2006). Yeni programlar hakkında acıklama [Description of the new teacher education
curricula]. Retrieved September 22, 2008, from
http://www.yok.gov.tr/egitim/ogretmen/aciklama_program.doc.
[6] Levy F, Murnane RJ. “Education and the Changing Job Market”, Educational Leadership, 2004.
[7] MONE. Turkish Educational System, Ankara, Turkey, 2008.
[8] Obadić A, Porić S. The coordination between education and employment policies, Working Paper
Series: Paper No. 08-02, 2008,
[9] OECD, Education at a Glance 2007; OECD Indicators, OECD, Paris, 2007.
[10] Yimaz B, Kilinc M, Sahan H. Examination of the organizational commitment and the levels of job
satisfaction in accordance with specific variables. Energy Educ Sci Technol Part B 2012;4:169-176.
[11] OECD. Informal Meeting of OECD Ministers of Education Oslo, 9th and 10th June 2009 Improving
Equity in Education, Chair’s summary, 2009.
[12] OECD (2010) Learning for Jobs OECD Synthesis Report of the OECD Reviews of Vocational
Education and Training
[13] Progress Report 2007: Progress towards Lisbon objectives in Education and Training: DG EAC 2007
Report based on indicators and benchmarks, 2007.
[14] Psacharopoulos G. Educational Planning and Labor Market. Eur J Educ 1980;15: No 2.
[15] SVET. Turkey’s labour market. A description from 1990 onwards, 2006. Retrieved from:
http://svet.meb.gov.tr/svet/general/Labour/TurkeysLabourMarketReportNov06.pdf
[16] Tarman B. The European Union and the Modernization of the Turkish Education System, Cambria
Press, Amherst, NY, 2008.
[17] Tarman B. Global perspectives and challenges on teacher education in Turkey. Int J Arts Sci (IJAS)
2010;3:78–96.
[18] Tarman B. Children’s online language learning: A constructionist perspective. Energy Educ Sci
Technol Part B 2012;4:875-882.
[19] Tarman B. Effective leadership in culturally diverse schools. Energy Educ Sci Technol Part B
2012;4:1103-1114.
[20] Cicek V, Ulke R,Tarman B. Comparison of character education in US and Turkish educational
systems: Globalizing American Education System. Energy Educ Sci Technol Part B
2012;4:1311-1322.
[21] Arslan E. The possible contributions of development agencies on Turkish economy. Energy Educ
Sci Technol Part B 2011;3:285–292.
[22] Sugozu IH, Erdogan S, Polat E. Twin deficits in Turkey: An econometric application for the
term of 1990-2009. Energy Educ Sci Technol Part B 2011;3:681–690.
[23] Yigit N. The latest reform in initial teacher education (ITE) in Turkey. Energy Educ Sci Technol
Part B 2012;4:309–322.
[24] Yucel C, Acun I, Tarman B, Mete T. A model to explore teachers’ ICT integration stages.
Turkish Online J Educ Technol 2010;9:1−9.
[25] Tarman B, Acun I. Social Studies Education and a New Social Studies Movement.
Journal of Social Studies Education Research (JSSER). 2010 (1), 1. 1-16.