Curriculum, Subjects, Number of Hours
All teaching programs including curriculum in all levels of education in Turkey are centrally prepared by relevant units of the Ministry of National Education and approved by the Board of Education and are made available to students for their use. The teachers decide on the teaching methods and educational materials, methods for examinations, homework and projects and evaluation for education. For the courses with sufficient number of teachers to form branches, the branch teachers can adopt collective resolutions. In principle, the textbooks and educational materials to be used in institutions are determined by the Ministry (Basic Law of National Education/Milli Eğitim Temel Kanunu, Article 55). The textbooks for primary education are decided by the Ministry and delivered to all students free of charge. Topics related to characteristics, preparation, review and evaluation of the textbooks and educational materials are regulated with Regulation on Textbooks and Educational Materials (Ders Kitapları ve Eğitim Araçları Yönetmeliği).
In the vast majority of schools, it is possible to make use of communication and information technology for teachers and students. Common and elective courses determined by the Ministry are available according to school types at secondary education level. Common courses to be used in the 9th and 10th grades are as follows: Language skills, Turkish Literature, Religion and Ethics, History, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Health Information, the First Foreign Language, Physical Education, Visual Arts / Music. Electives include Speech and Language, Mathematics and Science, Social Studies, Religion and Values Ethics, Foreign Languages and Literature, Sports and Social Events, Arts & IT. Common and elective courses (a total of 22 courses in 8 groups) from grade 11 vary in the general secondary education. All secondary schools offer the first foreign language in common courses. In addition, students in line with the interests and desires, which are defined as social activities outside the classroom student clubs and community service with all kinds of study trips, competitions, publications, performances, theatre, and sports, make debates and other similar activities.
Teaching Methods and Materials
Every teacher is responsible for making necessary preliminary studies based on the curriculum related with their course. In principle, every teacher in secondary education institutions drafts an annual plan for the rendered courses at the beginning of academic year, which is ratified by the principle. The daily plans are conducted according to the annual plan. Each program for every course is like a teacher’s map. Teachers are allowed to employ visual tools such as video, slide, tape-radio, overhead projector, television etc. However, this equipment does not exist in all schools. Most of the schools must be fitted with internet and information technology tools for the use of teachers and pupils. The general objectives of the program courses include units, located on the achievements and topics of each unit. The program also includes examples of activities with the description and examples of process arrangement and evaluation. The course book is a guide for teachers. These programs have to be drafted on the basis. Textbooks approved by the Ministry of Education at all levels of education (public/private schools) are distributed free to students. For this purpose, the studies on establishment of information technology classrooms are intensified within recent years.
Students’ seminars for community service projects and activities with performance work outside the written exam are conducted according to the characteristics of schools, conferences and similar studies. Students from all courses each semester fulfil at least one performance work with the task of preparing the project from at least one course in each course.
In addition to all these, investments are focused on improving the information technology infrastructure in order to ensure the effective and widespread use of educational technologies in lessons.
45,653 multi-functional printers and 3,657 document cameras were made available to our teachers and students at our schools. In order to enable our teachers to offer distance education in classrooms with interactive boards, 105,000 webcams were distributed to our schools.
From the beginning of the FATIH Project until 2016, 1,437,800 tablet computer sets were distributed gradually, 300,000 of which were to our teachers.
In addition, 665,157 tablet computers with a monthly 25 GB quota and 4.5 GSM sim cards were distributed to our students who did not have the opportunity to access distance education due to unfavorable socio-economic conditions during the global epidemic period. On February 4, 2022, 6,500 tablet computers were procured and distributed to students who could not attend school due to their chronic illness due to the COVID-19 epidemic, in order to enable them to prepare effectively and efficiently for higher education and to support them academically. Approximately 40 GB of content is loaded on each tablet computer in accordance with the student's school type. Thus, these students will be able to access the course content even when they cannot connect to the internet. Thus, the tablet computer set distributed since 2011, when the FATIH Project started, has reached 2,125,907.
The replacement operation of 20,000 SSD disks, which were provided to ensure the effective and efficient use of interactive boards installed in schools, was completed on 30 November 2021.
In order to support the 10.000 Schools Project in Basic Education, the Network Infrastructure of the Information Technologies Laboratory continues to be established in 1.000 schools.
Network Infrastructure Installation of 320 Information Technologies Laboratories was completed with the donations of UNICEF, MEV, OSBÜK and other donation budgets.
420 3D printers were purchased in order to improve students' computational thinking skills in Information Technologies Laboratories.
Moreover; additional studies were carried out in the distance education process that emerged during the epidemic period:
The data on distance education studies between 23 March 2020 and 18 June 2021 are as follows:
EBA Platform reached 23 Billion 769 Million clicks between 23 March 2020 – 18 June 2021 and was among the top 5 in the education category in the world in 2021.
In 2020, it became the 1st most visited education site in the world with 14 Billion 776 Million clicks. According to Google search data for 2020, EBA has been the most searched word in Turkey.
EBA Mobile application reached 31 million downloads for Android devices and 3.1 million downloads for iOS devices.
During the distance education process, 11,523 lessons and 1,049 extracurricular activities videos were shot in 13 different studios with approximately 1,000 teachers in 112 branches to be broadcast on TRT EBA Primary, Secondary and High School channels, and it broke a record by broadcasting 18,377 hours until 18.06.2021 through these channels.
14 million 111 thousand 941 students and 1 million 177 thousand 725 teachers actively used EBA, 1 million 917 thousand 365 students and 267 thousand 942 teachers actively used EBA Academic Support.
As a result of the infrastructure investments and studies made, it has been possible to conduct the lessons, which are foreseen to be held at all levels from pre-school to 12th grade, with the live lesson feature. In this context, 300 million 122 thousand 722 hours of live lessons were held.
TRT EBA High School
Within the scope of Distance Education studies, lecture videos covering all units and subjects and achievements at all grade levels for Turkish Language and Literature, History, Geography, Philosophy, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English lessons were prepared in cooperation with TRT and broadcast on TRT EBA High School channel.
Within the scope of the Summer School, science, culture, art and sports activity generations were created in the 2019-2020 academic year and in the 2020-2021 academic year and broadcast on the TRT EBA High School channel.
As of March 23, 2020, within the framework of the make-up programs, the make-up course contents were prepared in line with the make-up training planned by the Board of Education for the lessons and achievements that could not be taught face-to-face as of March 23, 2020 and broadcast on the TRT EBA High School channel.
The contents prepared within the framework of distance education continue to be broadcast on TRT EBA Lise channel on weekdays. Broadcast streams related to the determination of the content to be broadcast are prepared and transmitted to TRT.
On the other hand, the EBA Mobile application has reached 31 million downloads for Android devices and 3.1 million downloads for iOS devices. Between September 21, 2020 - June 18, 2021, 12,873,739 students and 1,005,980 teachers actively used EBA, and 836,384 students and 177,344 teachers actively used EBA Academic Support. In addition, a total of 287,183,328 Live Lessons were held until 19 June in the 2020-2021 academic year at pre-school, primary, secondary and high school levels.
For students who need internet access and device support during the distance education process, 15,352 EBA Support Points have been established, and 189 mobile EBA Support Points have been established. In addition, 664,157 tablet computers with 25 GB capacity GSM internet service and webcams for 105,000 classrooms were distributed.
During the epidemic period, with the transition to a new hybrid learning model with distance and blended education as of 16 March 2020, the number of teachers benefiting from webinars and MOOC-based trainings conducted within the scope of eTwinning, FCL and Scientix Projects has reached approximately 850,000. Teachers had the opportunity to attend more than one training according to their interests and curiosity.
The studies carried out for students with special education needs during the distance education process are as follows:
1. Considering that our students with special education needs do not receive face-to-face education for a long time and that they have been affected by the epidemic process in behavioral and social-emotional aspects, the "Adaptation Education Guidance Program for Special Education Students" and "Adaptation Program for Special Education Students" have been created.
2. TRT EBA TV Primary and Secondary School channels broadcast Turkish, Mathematics, Life Science, Science and Social Studies lessons along with concept teaching, skill teaching videos, and family information sessions. In this context, a total of 1,000 special training contents were prepared. These publications are delivered to our students, parents and teachers.
3. The OzelimEducation mobile application, which is shown as an example to other countries by the OECD, was downloaded by 491,387 mobile users, and the application, which is used by an average of 100,000 active users daily, was visited approximately 30 million times during the pandemic process. Rich content for all groups with special needs can be easily used on mobile phones and tablets with the application. In addition, all special education content was accessed via the orgm web and electronic library and the EBA platform.
4. EKPSSMEBÖZEL mobile application was implemented and rich special education content with questions and lectures was provided to individuals who took the disabled public personnel exam.
5. Digital applications in special education (such as Concept Teaching, Word Train, Bead Stringing, Stickman, Play with Matches, Seasons) were completed and published on EBA and mobile applications.
6. Sound-Based Reading, Writing Educational Material set consisting of 6 books for 1st level students was completed and published digitally, 5000 copies were printed and sent to our schools.
7. The Fun Learning Box training set for our pre-school special education students and the Teacher's oadmap Book for Inclusive Education for their teachers have been published digitally, printed and sent to all our schools.
8. Within the scope of the "Materials for Special Children" project, 600 sets were sent to our provinces at the beginning of the pandemic process. Afterwards, 1500 sets of materials were started to be sent.
9. Turkish Sign Language Books 1, 2 and 3 have been made interactive and published on EBA, and the contents of the Turkish Sign Language Web Portal continue to be enriched. Digital Turkish Sign Language Dictionary has been prepared and sign language videos of 5040 words have been made available.
10. The “I am Learning to Read and Write for Hearing Impaired Students” set consisting of 5 books for students with hearing impairment has been completed and published digitally.
11. The distribution of 400 “Orbit Reader Braille Reading and Note-Taking”, which converts the source requested by our visually impaired students into audio and allows them to take notes, continues.
12. 170 course contents were prepared by describing our visually impaired students and published on the EBA platform.
13. With the summer holiday framework program, our teachers voluntarily conducted distance education studies and provided content for our students and parents during the summer holiday.
14. The Calendar of Fun Activities for Children (ÖÇEET) has been prepared in 3 volumes and 600 activities that our students can do at home have been published on digital platforms.
15. Are you ready, which includes cultural and sports skills for our hearing, sight and mind group students in July 2020? The scenario and contents of the program were created by our teachers, video shoots were made professionally and broadcast on TRT EBA TV during the summer vacation.
16. Social media accounts such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook were opened under the name «mebozelegitim». Through these accounts, family information videos, EBA TV contents, announcements, etc. The contents are shared with the public on a daily basis.
17. A set consisting of 33 books with a total of 8000 pages has been prepared for our students who are educated through Integration / Integration, related to the achievements of mathematics lesson, life science lesson, science lesson, Turkish lesson, social studies lesson, religious culture and ethics lesson. Turkish, Mathematics, Life Sciences and Science lessons included in the set have been published, and Social Studies, Religious Culture and Ethics lessons will be published. In addition, a digital web page was created and interactive books were published on the orgm.meb.gov.tr/uyet platform. Other books in the set are in the process of typesetting.
18. “Effective Special Education in 7 Regions” meetings were held. A total of 19,416 people were reached in this program, in which questions from administrators, teachers and parents about distance education processes were answered.
YEĞİTEK has made agreements with GSM operators to remove the internet access barrier and provided 6-8 GB of free weekly access to be used in EBA. In addition, during the COVID-19 epidemic process, where education is carried out remotely, EBA Support Points were created in accordance with the standards determined in schools/institutions in order to provide access to EBA for students who do not have computer and internet access at home, and mobile EBA Support Tools were created for our students who could not reach this location. At these points, our teachers support their students' learning thanks to the digital content they provide.