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The five differences between the ministries of education in Turkey and the UK 23/01/2012 - Viewed 3109 times

I actually wanted to continue writing on the issue of sidewalks as we are buried in snow. The municipal mentality that plows the snow on the roads does not care much about the sidewalks where pedestrians walk. But I will cover this in a later commentary. I am now sure that we have no respect for citizens who want to walk on sidewalks. But does the government respect citizens who want to surf the Internet? Today, I want to share some of my observations as an average Internet user.

To this end, I decided to compare one ministry from Turkey with its counterpart in the United Kingdom (UK).  I decided to choose Turkey’s Ministry of Education (MoE), which is supposed to be making the largest contribution to Turkey’s endeavor of becoming one of the top 10 economies of the world. Some background information, first:

• The UK is the sixth largest economy in the world; Turkey is the seventeenth.
• The UK ranks ninth and Turkey ranks twenty-ninth among the 30 OECD countries, according to PISA test results.
• The average number of years of schooling in the UK and in Turkey is 9.5 years and 6.5 years, respectively.
• In the UK, the number of students and teachers in primary and secondary education is 8.1 million and 713,000, respectively. In Turkey, there are 16 million students and 750,000 teachers.

In other words, both ministries employ a similar number of teachers whereas the number of students Turkey’s MoE has to take care of is twice that the Department for Education (DfE) of the UK does. What do you think might be the differences between the websites of the two ministries? I recommend that you check the websites in the following order: First take a look at Turkey’s website (www.meb.gov.tr) and then take a ten-minute tour of the UK’s. [1]

Below are the five differences I noticed, in a nutshell:

1. Target audience: A prerequisite for the success of a website is that the developers have a concrete idea of a target audience. Looking at the website of the DfE, you can see whom the site was designed for easily as it has ample content for teachers and some designated content for parents and students. However, I was unable to understand who the target audience of the MoE’s website was. It might be the “Minister of Education’s Fan Club,” if there is such thing, since the website is full of news about the Minister.

2. Rich and up-to-date content: Another criterion for the success of a website is that it offers rich and up-to-date content that satisfies the needs of its target audience. You can spend hours on the website of the DfE. It presents rich content on a wide array of topics from curriculum updates to new evaluation techniques. Some of the content and information is as recent as one or two days old. On Turkey’s website there is no content that could compete with that on the UK’s site. It is worrisome if the Ministry thinks that teachers in Turkey do not need any additional information about the national curriculum. Also, I have noticed there are three systems mentioned on the MoE’s page: “the Parent Information System (VBS)”, “E-School” and “Mebbis.” I know that the Ministry has invested a great deal in these projects, but I am not sure whether their substance goes beyond a notice board or personal file information (such as grades, absenteeism of your child, personal rights and assignments of teachers etc.).

3. Password versus transparency: Despite the unsatisfactory content, a large number of users are subscribed to the VBS, E-School and Mebbis systems. I am not sure whether the content provided by these systems contributes to Turkey’s endeavor to become one of the top ten economies of the world. What I am actually interested in is why users have to log in to these systems with a password. I did not come across any module on the DfE website that required logging in with a password. This, actually, is not a technical detail. It points to a problem of mentality and, more importantly, to the dearth of transparency. For instance, on the DfE’s website, you can access inspection reports for all schools. The inspectors’ report about a particular school is announced to the whole world, online.[2] I could not log into any of the MoE’s systems, as a regular citizen of the Republic of Turkey with no password. But from my comfortable seat in Konya I was able to access all of the content in the UK, just like all of the 713,000 teachers there.

4. Reform agenda: The need for change in the field of education is evident in Turkey. However, you cannot see any effort or plan to this end on the MoE’s website. For example, I did not see any information on the most exciting projects of the last decade: the distribution of tablet computers free of charge to each student (this is known as the Fatih Project). It might be somewhere on the site, but I would like to see a clearer presentation on the project, which is much more important than the meaningless details that are given instead. On the DfE’s site, on the other hand, you can access sufficient information on their innovative practices, though I do not know if the country needs to reform the education sector or not. For example, I saw an interesting document about the DfE’s plans for reforming music education.[3]

5. The quality of data and statistics The public institutions of Turkey must be of the belief that the data they publish interest inspectors only, since only a few provide user-friendly data (the MoE is not among those few). Thank God you can access certain data on education via TURKSTAT. On the MoE website, all you can access is tabled data in a PDF document. You have to put in a lot of effort to gain meaningful knowledge from such data. When it comes to data and statistics, the website of the DfE is at least two decades ahead of that of the MoE. This is where you should seek the answer to the question “Why does the UK have education economists, but Turkey does not?” In the case of the former, you can access compiled data on all aspects of education at the national level. Moreover, you can download easily almost all data about a particular school by simply clicking it on a map. I was envious after comparing the two ministries in terms of the data they provide.

In fact, it is more than envy, but I will cut it short. I am leaving for you some other criteria, like user-friendliness and the use of social media, mobile applications and videos. Building a website like that of the DfE takes more than IT guys and software developers. Turkey needs a significant paradigm shift as well as institutional reforms. Surfing the Internet, I don’t feel that we are prepared for such change.

Esen Çağlar, TEPAV Economic Policy Analyst, http://www.tepav.org.tr/en/ekibimiz/s/1025/Esen+Caglar

[1] According to the data from www.alexa.com, the MoE is the thirteenth most-visited website among all and the first among public institutions. The ranking of the DfE in Internet traffic is 2,157.

[2] Please see the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills at <http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/files/922581/urn/110080.pdf>

[3] Department for Education at<https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-00086-2011.pdf>