OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Student Assessment in Turkey
How can assessment and evaluation policies work together more effectively to improve student outcomes in primary and secondary schools? The country reports in this series provide, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing evaluation and assessment policy to identify improvements that can be made to enhance the quality, equity and efficiency of school education.
Turkey’s education system stands out internationally as a success story. In recent decades, participation has been vastly expanded, becoming universal at lower levels of schooling and outperforming other middle-income countries in upper secondary education. However, the education system is also marked by disparities, with only around half of 15-year olds acquiring the essential competencies they need for life and work.
This review, developed in co operation with UNICEF, suggests how student assessment can be used more effectively to better support all students to do well. It provides recommendations for enhancing teachers’ classroom assessments, assessing a broader range of skills through national examinations and using the new national assessment to support improvements in learning and teachers’ assessment practice.
Promoting national goals for student learning
This chapter looks at how national goals for learning in Turkey influence student assessment practices. In Turkey, while successive curricula reforms have sought to create a more competency-based, student-centred approach to instruction, teachers have not been well-supported to apply these changes in the classrooms. The chapter suggests that developing a national curriculum framework will provide greater coherence and clarity to guide future curricula reforms, while clear learning standards in core subjects will help teachers better understand national expectations for what students are expected to know and be able to do. Finally, it suggests activities to communicate learning goals nationally, so that schools feel trusted and supported when they introduce changes to teaching and learning.