Education of Disadvantaged Children in OIC:
The Key to Escape from Poverty
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all classrooms, FATIH project can be seen as a tool to mitigate regional disparities across the
country.
Yet there is still room for improvement in improving coverage for the vulnerable groups such as
the poorest, children having a disability and refugee children. This suggests a need for higher and
more efficient spending as well as capacity improvements at both the ministerial level as well as
on the ground.
Recommendations
While Turkey`s determination and hard work on improving education systems and outcomes are
clear, there are areas of improvement and remaining challenges. Based on previously carried out
analysis and ongoing programmes and policies, the following areas stand out to be worth
stressing in the way forward:
Policies toaddressPovertyand location
Mitigating the impact of poverty and regional disparities in access to schooling: Analysis of the
most recent DHS data (DHS 2013) for Turkey implies that poverty and regional disparities still
appear as an obstacle in access to education in Turkey (See and . More and
continued effort on mitigating the effect of these circumstances would be a good strategy in
improving access to education.
Reaching universal enrolment rate in primary education: Implementation of nationwide
education campaigns supported legal regulations and enrolment rates grow fast until 2013 where
the primary school net enrolment rates reached 99 percent for both boys and girls. However, the
latest official MoNE statistics show that net schooling rate in primary education fell down to 91
percent for both genders (for year 2017). Acknowledging MoNE’s significant work and
enthusiasm, this decline remains a question that requires attention.
Policies toaddressDisability
Increasing coverage for children with special needs in education: While legislation is well defined,
the number of children with special needs in education are lower than the number of children
who need to be in special education. Despite all the intentions, coverage seems to be low and lack
of data prevents providing more concrete policy recommendations. In this respect, it is important
to collect data on access rates of the children having a disability to track the issue. It is also
necessary to make improvements on the field through teacher trainings, and incentive and control
mechanisms that ensure children having a disability are enrolled and get the special attention that
they need in the classroom.
Policies toaddress FailingSystems (Governance, Financing, Quality)
Eliminating the unexcused student absenteeism cases: Despite the fact that 12 years of education
is free and compulsory, the rate of student absenteeism appears to be a problem. As unexcused