Turkey’s Schools Link Up
By Cemal Ardil
Edirne, Turkey--The role of information technology in education is being continuously tested today in nations across the world, each with its unique learning environment and culture. In Turkey, the Computer Experimental School (CES) project, conducted together with World Links for Development (WorLD), is a dynamic example of the country’s commitment to opening up educational opportunities to a wider population and accelerating human capital development. In the past two decades, Turkey has made major efforts to establish an education system capable of providing young men and women with the broad range of knowledge and skills required to meet present-day job market needs. By 1989 the country’s adult literacy rate had reached an estimated 70 percent (of whom 49 percent are female), and enrollment in primary education had gone up to 97 percent.
Since then, the government has sought assistance to introduce a number of projects aimed at improving the quality of education. These include up-grading the curricula and instructional materials, revising student achievement tests, improving the teacher training system, and increasing the research component in education. Two hundred schools were equipped to work as curriculum laboratories to test the new curricula and teaching materials, and 53 schools were identified as Computer Experimental Schools (CES), where information technology would be integrated with the teaching-learning process to facilitate education. The number of CES schools across the country is now 182.
Preparing for change
In August 1992, a special unit was created within the General Directorate of Computer Education and Services to take responsibility for the CES project in November the same year. The group’s first task was to acquire qualified staff to implement and support CES. For this it sought the involvement of graduate students from local universities and high school teachers with experience and interest in computers and information technology. A specialist was brought in to evaluate and select educational software, and special training fellowships were offered to selected teachers and administrators working with the project. By mid-1995, a draft of specifications including hardware, software, courseware, staffing needs and training outlines was complete, the software evaluation consultant was in place, and the fellowship trainees were in a university in the United States. By the end of the year, firms which were to provide hardware and software to the schools had been selected and the CES project was on its way. As the project was due for completion in June 1997, a review was planned late enough in the implementation phase to isolate the lessons from the experiment, but in time for any corrective measures to be initiated. With Turkey’s open commitment to information technology in schools, the review assumed the continuance of the project and concentrated on areas of challenge and improvement.
Technology in the classroom--the project in operation
The computer laboratories in the pilot schools are being used regularly today, some of them remarkably well. The ones which have been slow to come to full operation, are those which did not have trained computer teachers. Others, despite similar problems, have managed to progress significantly. By now, approximately 250 teachers have been trained in the use of computers and educational software. Eleven months after the implementation, a mid-term review of the project found that administrators, teachers and students were all enthusiastically and creatively using the equipment and software. At the same time, the schools were serving their communities in a variety of ways: as model and demonstration schools, as teacher training centers, as advisors for parents wanting to purchase computers for their homes, and as a source of inspiration to other schools outside the project. The CES model was being adopted by some of the non-CES schools. Trained teachers from the CES schools were actively involved in helping to equip laboratories and train staff in similar voluntary projects in non-CES schools.
This is an excerpt from the, article, "WorLD Project in Turkey," available on the website of the International Institute for Communication and Development, at: www.iicd.org
Print and Online Version is available from World Bank; Development OUTREACH Fall 1999
