Individual evaluation of the teachers are appointed to the school principals and it was aimed to evaluate and monitor each teacher at least once within an academic semester. The school principals who assist teachers in their individual development are to inform the inspectors and the Province National Education Directorates in case they observe a problem in teachers’ performance, so that an inspector from the related field can observe and evaluate the teachers concerned. In addition, teachers who were found successful are offered to the Directorate, or the other province level administrators for an attainment certificate.
In order to secure quality assurance within the schools, teachers do participate in the internal evaluation process along with the principals. This internal evaluation process is rather a developmental and a compulsory one. Internal evaluation of the school is carried out in various meetings: ‘teachers’ board’ is gathered with the directorship of the school principal, ‘course teachers’ board’ is gathered with the field teachers instructing to the same classes as well as ‘field teachers’ board’ composes of the same teachers, during which plans are developed to improve the educational quality of the school concerned.
The nature of the topics and tasks handled within these compulsory meetings are arrenged in the concerning regulations of the schools/institutions. The reports and suggestions prepared during tose internal evaluation studies are also reviewed by the external evaluation authorities, educational inspectors (MoNE Regulation of Secondary Education Institutions published on Official Newspaper dated 07/07/2013 and numbered 28758 and MoNE Regulation on Early Childhood Education and Primary Education Institutions published on Official Newspaper dated 26/07/2014 and numbered 29072).
In addition, with the Law-amending ordinance, entitled, No: 652, Ministry of National Education founded specific evaluation and monitoring boards so as to achieve the objectives set by the policy documents within the General Directorate of European Union and Foreign Affairs, General Directorate of Religion Teaching, General Directorate of Lifelong Learning, Board of Construction and Real Estate, General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education, General Directorate of Secondary Education, General Directorate of Special Education, General Directorate of Counseling Provisions, General Directorate of Basic Education, Board of Education and Training, Directorate of Counseling and Inspection and within the General Directorate of Higher Education and Foreign Affairs.
Also, A ‘Quality Framework of National Education’ was accepted by the Ministry in order to establish the quality index of the Ministry of National Education, and to monitor annually the improvements at town and province level as well as at student, teacher and school levels with the participation of the concerning stakeholders. The indicators specified within the quality framework are utilized during the inspection of the quality standards of the schools and institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education. Quality Framework of National Education is composed of specific areas and sub-areas referring to specific student acquisitions, social infrastructure, financial and physical infrastructure, readiness level, educational context and environment, risk evaluation, monitoring activities as well as information and communication areas.
Quality Framework of the MoNE refers to the measurement of the institutional quality in education and training, collecting the data for the performance management and improvement as well as the management of those procedures. By the infrastructure to be constructed, it is aimed to provide a sustainable quality management system. Upon putting the Quality Framework of the MoNE in effect, the educational quality map of Turkey will be identified, schools and institutions will be evaluated with regards to specific criteria and remedial improvement studies will be conducted to secure quality among schools and institutions where there are differences.
In order to put the quality Framework of the MoNE into account, initially, the Ministry has to pool a quality framework to provide data transfer from the different modules. To this end, the modelling concerned has been initiated and the software studies have been commenced by the Directorate of Information Processing. The issue of how to establish the criteria that relate to the Quality Framework of the MoNE and how to integrate them to the overall system has been handled and necessary studies have been conducted so far. The studies concerning the comparison of the institutional aspect of the Performance Management System and how to collect data for the Quality Frame is being conducted currently.
When the Quality Framework of the MoNE is put into effect, the schools and the institutions will be graded in terms of the quality indexes and thus Turkish educational system will be measured with regards to the international criteria. The reasons behind the success and the failure will be explicated by referring to the data. The success rates of the schools/institutions, provinces and towns will then be analyzed, monitored and reported, which will ultimately help establish a mechanism that is based on valid and reliable data for developing educational policies. Quality Framework of the MoNE is composed on 465 criteria, one sample of which is provided below.
FIELD
Student Major Learning Outcomes
SUB-FIELD
Maths
COMPONENTS OF SUB-FIELD
Valuing mathematical thinking,
Formulizing events, concepts and contexts mathematically,
Using the mathematical concepts, real situations and approaches and validating them in a rational frame,
Applying and interpreting the mathematical outputs.
(2015/6 numbered and 6/3/2015 dated decision of the Higher Planning Board)
Within the Turkish Vocational and Technical Strategic Document and Action Plan (2014-2018), the Annual Work Plan Monitoring System 2016 (TURKMETES) has been established under the auspices of the General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education in the Ministry of National Education, which will enable data input and confirmation for monitoring reports, within the frame of the authority and responsibilities, defined as the priority responsible and activity responsible. In the Turkish Vocational and Technical Strategic Document and Action Plan (2014-2018), as the Priority article, there is an act about the establishment of the quality system in education and self-evaluation. Within the activity acts of the precaution article of the document; the studies concerning the application of the Quality Framework and Educational Quality Index as well as preparing a module for raising awareness about self-evaluation applications and informing the vocational and technical schools about the quality system.
To put the Quality Frame of the MoNE into account and to prepare the Educational Quality Index, The Ministry of National Education has completed a modelling study about the Quality Frame and submitted to the Directorate of Information Processing. The studies concerning how to acquire the criteria and how to integrate the Frame is still going on.
The criteria of the Quality Frame of the MoNE has been divided in terms of abstract and concrete, and the studies about how to concretize the data retrieved from the abstract criteria have already been completed so far. By putting the Quality Frame of the MoNE into account, the success rates of the schools/institutions, provinces and towns will then be analyzed, monitored and reported, which will ultimately help establish a mechanism that is based on valid and reliable data for developing educational policies in terms of international standards.
Within the context of preparing a module for raising awareness about self-evaluation, studies in 20 schools and institutions were carried out in the academic year 2012-2013, and in 2015-2016 academic year, the number of schools and institutions for pilot studies increased up to 176.
Throughout this process, among 176 piloting schools/institutions, trainings and briefing seminars were held face to face in 73 institutions/schools in 34 different cities, and the rest were carried out via official correspondences, email and telephone.
It was observed during the preparation of the reports and the feedback during the school visits that some aspects of the specific questions in the Self-evaluation Web Portal were not comprehended clearly and there were some problems in the system.
Therefore, there has been a need for revising the questions about the self-evaluation in the web-portal, and a workshop was carried out in 29-31 March 2016 in Ankara Teachers’ House with the participation of 8 piloting schools’ representatives of the quality units. In this workshop, discussions were held concerning the update of the questions in the self-evaluation questions so as to disseminate the self-evaluation process in the vocational and technical schools and also the units in the web portal were updated in institutional level as interim questions.
New studies are not initiated to raise awareness about the use of self-evaluation applications in the Self-evaluation Web Portal so that the problems emerged initially and the current expectations in application level can be handled.
Training sessions will be held in 2016 for quality evaluation specialists working in the research and development units of the Province Directorates of National Education of 81 cities, school/institution principals and administrators as well as vice directors and administrators who are responsible for the application of the quality systems.
The Grant Program of the Operation for Increasing the Quality of Vocational and Technical Education in Turkey, in which the Ministry is a beneficiary, was found appropriate for grant of 67 project, the contracts were signed in 14-15 July 2014 and the activities were embarked on 01 September 2014. On 31 August 2015, counseling provisions were provided by the thematic monitoring specialists of the General Directorate of the Vocational and Technical Education for the completed projects in place. Of project grantees, 61 project owner partners are the Vocational and Technical Anatolian Secondary Schools.
The outcomes of the completed projects were sent to the units of the MoNe for consideration. In addition the outputs of the projects are available on the website of our General Directorate (http://goo.gl/twjYDI).
Increasing Enrollment Rates Especially For Girls-2, which was conducted under the Operation of Increasing Enrollment Rates Especially For Girls, aims to enhance investment in human capital by increasing the quality of education, improving the linkage between education and the labor market, and raising enrollment rates at all levels of education, especially for girls. As a follow up project, it embarked on 2015-2017 period.
Within the framework of the project entitled “Increasing Enrollment Rates Especially for Girls”, facilities such as 13 schools with dormitories, cultural, arts and sports and conference halls were provided in 8 piloting cities (Batman, Bitlis, Erzurum, Hakkâri, Siirt, Şanlıurfa ve Şırnak).
With the project activities, it was aimed to:
- Increase the institutional capacity by organizing trainings for different target groups;
- Develop communication and awareness;
- And competencies of the personnel of Psychological Counseling and Guidance.
Pilot studies on buildings of the vocational and technical education schools are being carried out for providing high quality provisions in line with the standards of the vocational education. With the project entitled Increasing the Energy Efficiency in Buildings, which is run in cooperation with General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education, United Nations Developmental Program, Ministry of Environment and City, Global Environment Fund; it is aimed to increase the energy efficiency of the buildings and to prepare legislative and institutional infrastructure to decrease the gas emissions and to accelerate the preparation of the necessary regulations. It is also aimed to increase the awareness in public on those issues and to introduce the holistic approach of energy performance and its fine examples to the community, which are in parallel with the EU applications.
To this end, the facility constructions of the Cezeri Green Technology Vocational and Technical Anatolian Secondary School in Eryaman, Ankara has been going on, which is carried out within the project started in 2011.
Structuring of National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in Turkey were initiated by the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) after Ministerial Summit held within Bologna Process in 2005 in Bergen deciding on the composition of national qualifications frameworks. In 2006, Members of the first Commission of Qualifications for Higher Education was founded on the Decision of CoHE, which were composed of the higher education institutions representatives and continued its studies until February 4th, 2008. As a result of works done between these dates, the commission defined NQF for higher education according to the knowledge, skills and competencies to be gained minimally at the end of each degree of higher education (associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees) mostly using the level descriptors within Qualifications Framework for European Higher Education Area (QF-EHEA). Turkish National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was then approved by the General Board decision of the Council of Higher Education on 21.01.2010
Quality assurance studies for higher education was put into effect by the Regulation of Higher Education Quality Assurance published in Official Newspaper on 23 July 2015 (http://goo.gl/5fl2wo). This regulation covers the quality assurance at all levels of higher education, including education-training, research activities and administrative provisions, internal and external quality assurance, accreditation processes and qualifying the independent external evaluation institutions as well as the tasks, duties and responsibilities that relate to those processes.