Revision brings good. Today’s world requires smart projects, not crazy ones. We have a great deal to lose now.

The old project involving Sinop has risen from the grave once again. According to yesterday’s news, the Sinop Governorate is planning to turn Boztepe Cape into an island. You might wonder what the purpose is. As far as I understand, they want to connect the island to the mainland with a bridge. You might ask “Why would you separate it from the mainland if you are going to reconnect it?” Let me not ask that question. Instead I will argue, “The most difficult task for Turkey is to decide its priorities.” Above was Sinop’s unplanned “crazy” project. I think, the plan to increase the compulsory education to twelve years was also a crazy project. I do not believe that the project was attempted after scrutinizing the priority list of the country. I believe that Turkey needs smart projects, the potential gains and losses of which have been considered for at least fifteen minutes. Today, let me tell you what I think about the latest education bill.

But let me begin with Sinop’s project as it is an older one. It is said that Boztepe, which was an island, was connected to the mainland by filling in the sea during the Seljuk era.  To create an island has been on the agenda in Sinop for a long time. The administration has been talking about the benefits for tourism. Why has this not been done already? For tourism, the city has to have “some cotton to offer.” As long as they do not have any facilities, restaurants, roads, or a workforce who can speak English, the only thing they can offer tourists is a Coke from a shop. And the profit will go elsewhere. The way to earn profits from tourism is not to increase the publicity of the city; it is not solely a public relations project. Tourism revenues can be earned only by making the city active in all of the links of the tourism value chain. Otherwise, tourists can easily go to the neighboring city. If you cannot identify your priorities correctly and start dancing the wrong steps, you cannot catch the rhythm.

It is a good idea to increase the level of compulsory education from eight to twelve years, of course, but only if you have already and fully exploited the quality gains enabled by the existing eight-year system. Let’s say it: Turkey has a problem with the quality of education. The eight-year compulsory education system was not built on a solid foundation. After the level of compulsory education was raised from five to eight years, the schooling rate at the elementary level increased from 85 percent in 1997 to 98 percent in 2010. The ratio for secondary school increased from 38 percent to 69 percent over the same period. This was possible because the government increased the number of classrooms, as was required by the eight-year compulsory education program. The schooling rates picked up because it was possible to meet the physical needs required by the eight-year education scheme. However, the success in physical improvements was not achieved in terms of quality. This is what the results of the OECD’s PISA test suggest. In fact, we have a long way to go concerning quality.

Increasing the level of compulsory education to twelve years under these circumstances implies that the physical needs will increase. Hundreds of thousands of new teachers and thousands of new classrooms will be needed. These are needs that can be identified at a glance. When it was finally the time to focus on quality, Turkey needs to allocate more resources to quantity. If the education budget is not expanded substantially, the twelve-year compulsory education will shift the funds that need to be used for improving quality back to improving physical needs. It is a good step concerning the elections ahead, but a bad step for the future of the country. Looking at country examples, the level of compulsory education is shorter than twelve years in Finland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, the UK and the USA. The quality of education in these countries, however, is better than that in Turkey. Thus, the quality and duration of education are not closely connected. Please note that the first draft of the new bill was revised and the distance education formula that would seclude girls was omitted. Now, it is time to revise the bill once again, after considering it for at least fifteen minutes. Revision brings good. Today’s world requires smart projects, not crazy ones. We have a great deal to lose now.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 06.03.2012