We believe that reforms are inevitable in all sectors and at all levels of our education system, if we are to become a leading contributor to contemporary civilization, as Atatürk, our great leader, has designated as one of our national goals. The fast pace of change and development in today’s world, with its strong globalization trends, affects job contents, occupational areas and approaches to education and training. The approach to education involving formal grades is leaving its place to the approach involving identification of new disciplines.

In this context, today’s contemporary education consists of three fundamental steps:

The first and foremost step in this reform is basic education, currently the top item in our Ministry’s agenda. 1996-2000 Five year Plan reads, in its section on "Legal and Institutional Arrangements", that "transition to eight year compulsory education is targeted". It was stressed in the 15^th National Education Council that "our country having achieved compulsory five-year basic education, the Basic National Education Law No: 1739 of 1973 also stipulates inclusion of secondary school education in the scope of compulsory education, thereby realizing transition to eight year compulsory basic education". Furthermore, the Program of the 55^th Government as well adopts the same approach to basic education and provides guidelines for the Ministry of National Education. The first and most crucial item of business executed by the 55^th Government in the area of education has been to lead the way in legislating Act No: 4306 and put under implementation the CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION YEAR 2000 PROJECT.

1. Oral exams for selecting assistant inspectors of primary education are to be held on January 26-28,2000. Appointments to provinces are to be made by drawing lots.
2. Pupils’ textbooks, pupils’ exercise books and teachers’ guidebooks are being written in nine provinces. Once written, these books are to be reviewed and revised by the relevant commissions, before they are ready for printing. In-service training will be given to inspectors’ of primary education to help introduce the new education materials to teachers and school administrators and assure that methods of active learning are used.
3. Targets of Contemporary Education Year 2000 Project:

1. Opening "Information Technology Classrooms" in all primary education schools, with priority being given to schools in provincial and district centers.
2. Assuring that the primary education pupils as well as teachers and administrators become computer-literate.
3. Completing and putting in service the software for transition to computer-aided education.
4. Delivering computer literacy training to primary education inspectors in February through March 2000.
5. Delivering computer literacy training to 3000 teachers in July through August, 2000.
6. Developing physical facilities to ensure 100 percent of the primary education age group by 2000 and classroom size of 30 pupils.

4. Work is being contemplated in connection with organizing In-Service Training Courses related to problems encountered in implementation.
5. Transactions are to be carried out in connection with "Primary Education Week" celebrations for the academic year 1999-2000.
6. Works of art by primary education pupils are to be put on exhibition on the occasion of October 29 the Republican Holiday.
7. Work and transactions logged in the 1999-2000 Work Calendar is to be carried out.
8. Provincial Governors have been asked to furnish data on number of classrooms that would be completed in 1999. This data is to be evaluated to assess progress towards the target of "30 pupils in a classroom", as set forth by the Contemporary Education Year 2000 Project, in line with the spirit of Law No: 4306.
9. Work has started on "2001-2010 Education Planing ", which would constitute the basis for the formation of a contemporary primary education infrastructure, up to universal standards, along the lines of the 15^th National Education Council recommendation for "increasing compulsory primary education to 11 years".
10. A project is to be developed and implemented to have the pupils at YIBO and PIO benefit from the atelier at vocational and technical high schools, in order to introduce them to occupations and prepare them for possible employment after graduation.
11. School managers and assistant managers are to be provided with in-service training in order to increase quality and efficiency in school management.
12. Primary education programs regulation books and teachers’ guide books in print are to be distributed to schools and classrooms.
13. Regulations on bussing in primary education is to be prepared and put in effect.
14. Grade teachers are to be provided with courses in language instruction in order to assure that primary education pupils learn at least one foreign language.
15. Plans are to be developed for:

1. Renovating 178 village schools in Sirnak, Mardin, Van, Bitlis, and Hakkari.
2. Installing "Information Technology Classrooms" in all primary education schools by 2000.

16. Primary education inspectors who had previously received training for promoting active methods of learning and newly prepared education materials will be organizing occupational training activities for all primary education school administrators and teachers, countrywide on 1-through-15 September, 1999.
17. Administrators and teachers of primary education schools where computer laboratories are to be installed will be provided with training in use of computers. There will be at least one trainers’ trainer for each school.
18. The project for having pupils at YIBO and PIO recognize the various occupations and get prepared for further education or employment will be put under implementation, assuring that these pupils are better prepared for life after graduation.
19. A 10-year plan (2000-2010) will be prepared in connection with increasing the duration of compulsory education to 11 years.

In conclusion, with considerable distance having been taken in physical infrastructure to support eight-year continuous compulsory primary education, emphasis is now placed on increasing quality of education.

Education is the top priority sector in this seventh planning period, aiming to catch up with the process of change going on worldwide. An well-educated young population would be Türkiye’s greatest advantage in the 2000s, with respect to both increasing our country’s competitive strength and integration with the European Union.

The targets in the 7^th Five-Year Plan are;

• Raising citizens for the information age, free and self-confident, aware of his or her responsibilities to Republic of Türkiye as a democratic, secular and social state of rights.
• Improving the education levels of the manpower for increased international competitive power.
• Rearranging / reorganizing curricula and programs, teaching methods and techniques, and education-training equipment and materials, with a democratic and free approach with universal standards.
• Attaining enrolment rates, by the end of the planning period, of 16 percent in pre-school education, 100 percent in primary education, 75 percent in secondary education and 31 percent in tertiary education.
• Alleviating inter-regional disparities in coverage and quality of education and expanding education-training services at all levels in order to assure equality in opportunity and means of better education.
• Establishing an effective system of measurement, assessment and guidance in education, beginning with grades 6 through 8.
• Rearranging instruction in foreign languages at all levels of education, placing emphasis on development of an environment that would be conducive to improving effectiveness of foreign language instruction, rather than instruction in foreign languages.
• Restructuring in secondary education to avoid excessive demand for tertiary education.
• Bringing formal and non-formal vocational and technical education up to world standards.
• Transition to modular system in vocational and technical education, revising curricula to suit this system.
• Establishing the testing and certification system in compliance with the occupational standards established, and establishing the Occupational Standards Institution.
• Increasing resources allocated to education, in order to raise better-qualified manpower and increase productivity, mobilizing private sector resources as well, and assuring rational use of these resources.
• Assuring increased participation of the private sector in the effort to raise the manpower with qualifications the economy needs.
• Keeping in view the increasing importance of health, education, scientific research, tourism and environmental protection sectors and therefore placing emphasis on raising manpower qualified to work in these sectors.
• Building a flexible structure, involving distant education just as well as formal education, to provide large groups of population with the means to gain knowledge and skills they happen to need.
• Encouraging successful and talented pupils to become teachers and increasing numbers and competencies of teachers.
• Restructuring the teacher education system by providing vocational education at postgraduate education academies.
• Attaining a flexible structure that provides options for vertical and lateral transfers at every level between institutions and programs of formal and non-formal education.
• Increasing the share of private institutions in education.
• Attaching importance to development of education institutions to assure that gifted children are provided with an environment compatible with their abilities, and supporting private sector initiatives in this area.
• Relieving tertiary education from its centralized, bureaucratic structure and introducing arrangements that would promote competition in the system.
• Increasing the authority of university and faculty administrations, introducing arrangements to assure participation of faculty, research staff and pupils in management and administration at the universities.
• Increasing scientific autonomy of universities, bringing the education-training systems and programs up to par with international standards.
• Developing university - industry relations.
• Making use of technology at every stage of education, gradually expanding computer-aided education, and placing emphasis on mass education and distant education.
• Introducing institutional arrangements in the form of revolving fund administrations, and using the capacities in the private sector, for supporting development of software for computer-aided education and rendering the system self-supporting.

Recommendations were adopted at the Fifteenth National Education Council, including the following:

• Accelerating the restructuring effort as envisaged in the 7^th Five Year Plan, and instituting provincial-level education planing.
• Carrying on with the business of compulsory education implementations in order to include the age 18 by the year 2001.
• Though starting the counseling services for assessing and guiding the pupils at grade 4, undertaking true guidance from grade 9 onwards.
• Starting formal vocational and technical education after the grade in which preparation and guidance take place.
• Preparing grade programs for the disabled pupils who benefit from "integration/unification education", compatible with their achievement levels.
• Further developing the existing education programs to catch up with EU averages in education.
• Implementing modular education programs based on system integrity, in vocational and technical education, placing emphasis on "field and branch education" and making transition to certification in accordance with modules.
• In view of the needs in teacher training, improving coordination between MEB and the relevant institutions of tertiary education, intensifying the flow of information in this connection.
• Realizing sufficient and effective cooperation at "institutional scales" between the Ministry, YÖK, and the universities, and rendering such cooperation permanent through legal arrangements.
• Turning the idea of a National Education Academy into reality, for arranging and organizing in-service training and supporting research and development related to teaching.
• Legislating Teachers’ Personnel Law.
• Encouraging teachers to pursue masters’ and doctorate studies.
• Incorporating courses about non-formal training into tertiary education programs of teacher training.
• Putting guidance up front in the supervision effort, performing guidance and level assessment at the beginning of the academic year in primary education, and performing achievement assessment at the end of the year.
• Revising Law No: 3308 on apprenticeship and vocational training to reflect today’s circumstances as well as the Convention on Children’s Rights, while retaining the essence of this law.
• Accelerating work on "occupational definitions" and "occupational standards’ based on job analyses carried out under the coordination of IIBK.
• Establishing a new system of "Certification" that would be valid countrywide and in the European Union.
• Encouraging private institutions of secondary education to offer vocational programs.
• Emphasizing foreign language instruction instead of instruction in foreign language, attaching more importance to foreign language instruction while switching from compulsory to elective language courses.
• Restructuring the central organization of the Ministry of National Education, with all its units, after realizing the contemplated restructuring of the education system and having had the results on hand.
• Increasing the share of Ministry of National Education in the Consolidated budget.

This plan includes the following targets:

• Expanding and developing pre-school education, establishing pre-school education centers.
• Achieving 100 percent enrolment in primary education.
• Reducing the classroom sizes down to standards and switching from "the two-shift education" to normal, one-shift education.
• Carrying out work in coordination with governing body in order to push secondary education enrolment rates --which varies significantly from province to province-- up to 40.5 percent, as targeted in the 7^th Five Year Development Plan.
• Having at least one counseling teacher at each and every primary education school by 2001.
• Establishing atelier and laboratory equipment standards on the basis of the programs put under implementation in new areas of occupation.
• Establishing departments and units at Anatolian vocational high schools of communication in the areas of radio and television, public relations, journalism, printing and advertising.
• Expanding apprenticeship training to cover all occupations that bear employment potential.
• Ending child labor and increasing sensitivity in the relevant circles to problems of youth under employment.
• Implementing and expanding the model of curriculum laboratory schools.
• Reorganizing apprenticeship training with respect to legislation, programs and execution, in parallel to compulsory education’s being extended to eight years.
• Unifying vocational education.
• Legislating Non-formal Training Coordination Law.
• Rendering literate 2,675,000 adults through distant education and "one-to-one instruction".
• Providing post-literacy training to 2,675,000 adults through distant education and distant education.
• Re-writing the education programs for occupations for which standards have been established.
• Putting in use one and same software package at all public education centers by 2001, as well as the apprenticeship centers.
• Increasing the number of apprentices up to 300,000 (as covered by Law No: 3308) at the beginning of academic year 1998-1999, having all working youth covered by apprenticeship training in year 2000.
• Increasing the number of tertiary education institutions.
• Satisfying needs for pupil dormitories in provinces and districts that are host to tertiary education institutions.
• Assuring that pupils (of tertiary education) are sheltered in healthy, organized and modern environments.
• Expanding scholarship coverage.
• Improving supervision and efficiency of subsidized housing.
• Updating programs for Computer education.
• Increasing teacher efficiency via computer aided education.
• Transition to computer aided education at all primary education schools by 2001.
• Completing work on Internet access.
• Researching education/training needs for the 2000s.
• Putting under implementation the Education Master Plan.
• Making Maps of Education Regions.
• Evaluating and expanding the practice of "Full Day-Full Year Education
• Expanding Project ILSIS, Management Information System for Provincial Directorates of National Education.
• Assuring that MEB central and provincial organizations have access to national and international information networks through Internet.
• Integrating domestic and international organizations of MEB in to MEBNET, Ministry of National Education Wide Area Network.
• Upgrading school libraries to contemporary standards.
• Expanding revolving fund service model for improving and restructuring teachers’ guesthouses, training centers and social facilities, with respect to both quantity and quality.
• Further developing the occupational qualifications of teachers and administrators.
• Increasing the number of Anatolian teachers’ high schools up to 100, including the ones to be opened at provinces and well-developed district centers that currently do not have such high schools.

• Completing the construction of National Education Academy by 2001.
• Establishing and operating a manpower planning unit.
• Implementing job analyses.
• Raising education administrators.
• Pre-defining principles of super-vision/inspection.
• Establishing principles and methods applicable to inspection of schools subordinate to other Ministries or organizations.
• Establishing common principles applicable to inspection of education counsels and embassies.

The Education Master Plan, based on the 15^th National Education Council and the 7^th Five Year Plan, includes the following activities and targets over a 15-year horizon: