One in four people in Turkey want to be a teacher: Education minister

BURSA

Public school teacher candidates are seen in this file photo while waiting for their appointments to be announced.

One in every four people in Turkey wants to be a teacher, Education Minister İsmet Yılmaz said on Jan. 4, referring to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

“A [report] has been newly released by the OECD. Generally when there is something negative about Turkey international reports are quick to declare it. But there is something positive here,” Yılmaz said during a visit to the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) office in the northwestern province of Bursa.

Yılmaz said 5 percent of people in the world want to be teachers, according to the OECD report, but this figure was 25 percent in Turkey.

“This reflects the positive perception about being a teacher in Turkey,” he added.

“The number of students per classroom in Turkey has fallen from 36 to 24. One teacher would teach 28 students in Turkey in previous years. Now, teachers teach 12 students on average,” Yılmaz said.

He also favorably contrasted spending on education in Turkey with the OECD average.

“Turkey spends 6.2 percent of national income on education at the moment. I think the real figure is above that. In the past we had been behind the OECD countries [where the average is 5.2 percent]. There is no country in Europe that allocates more resources for training than we do. A teacher is the most important investment for education,” Yılmaz added.

Despite these positive figures, Turkey still has the unhappiest students in the world, according to a previous OECD study thawt covered 72 countries.

The Paris-based OECD’s Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) published its latest report on April 20, 2017, surveying students’ performances in school, relationships with schoolmates and teachers, family environments and free time.

Some 540,000 students from 72 different countries participated in the study. The survey found Turkish students had the worst life satisfaction, with more than 20 percent reporting “dissatisfaction” with life.

In contrast, fewer than four percent of students in the Netherlands reported “dissatisfaction” with life.