The sought after exam system is finally found, but...

Over the past few days I am sure you’ve seen in many newspapers, including daily Hurriyet, about the results of the new Transition from Primary to Secondary Education (TEOG) exams.

The news articles focus on two important points: (1) Children who’ve been enrolled at schools in a city far from their residence (up to 120 kilometers in some cases); (2) Children who’ve been enrolled at imam hatip schools (religious vocational schools) against their will.

I will speak about these two points, but from what I’ve seen, we’ve been shying away from giving the same amount of energy to the subject of our educational system in general, as well as this new entrance system and its advantages/disadvantages.

Let me be clear: If we are insisting on managing the enrollment of over a million students from all over Turkey from one center with a supposed sense of “equality,” it seems like Turkey has finally found the exam system it’s been searching for.

Because it wasn’t only a portion of students that took the TEOG, but all incoming high school students, the exam questions were based on the principle text books that all students used. In a sense, the TEOG replaced the two written examinations the students normally took.

This practice also decreased the students’ need for “dershane” (private additional schooling) and even if students still went to a dershane, they undertook it to study the information given to them in school lessons and not to practice test writing.

But, like I said in the beginning: If we believe managing all topics, including calculating, grading, and giving class grades is best done through a single computer touch, the TEOG is a successful system.
I...