Education minister unveils major curriculum reform for all grades

ANKARA

The Education Ministry is working on a comprehensive curriculum amendment that will encompass all grade levels, aiming to simplify course contents, minister Yusuf Tekin has announced.

"We are striving for a curriculum change that will cover all classes. With this change, we will refrain from burdening our children with unnecessary and excessively advanced knowledge. Simplicity will be incorporated into all subjects. We will share the results with the public in December," Tekin told press members on Nov. 1 in the capital Ankara.

Pointing out that the key focus of this alteration is to eliminate content that does not align across different grade levels or continuously repeats, as well as topics that are overly demanding for students for their grades, Tekin cited that they have received complaints from numerous teachers who find the curriculum too burdensome, expressing that there is not enough time to cover every topic in the one-year plan.

"Due to the curriculum being both too demanding and containing an excessive number of subjects, our teachers lament that they cannot cover the topics within the allotted weekly teaching hours. These complaints were received by almost all course teachers," Tekin explained.

Responding to a question about whether certain topics will be omitted entirely, he stated, “Some subjects taught in middle school are nearly at the level of university courses. There are topics that should not be covered."

"Experts in the relevant fields are working on each subject. Once these studies are completed, the specialists in the commission created for each subject will provide the necessary assessments, and changes will be made based on these evaluations."

Tekin has introduced radical changes since taking office in June, such as reintroducing grade retention, increasing the weight and importance of Turkish language grades for grade promotion and making the transition to distance education more challenging.