Teacher Identity and Current Teacher Education Policy Challenges in Turkey

• In Event: Teacher Education, Inc.: Attempts at Privatizing Teacher Preparation Systems Around the World

Abstract

Focusing on recent national regulatory decisions, this paper explores current teacher education policy challenges in Turkey.

In the last three decades, there has been a shift from discussions on the critical need for more teachers in public schools to being able to recruit limited numbers of new public school teachers despite increasing applications in most areas. In a nationally regulated large system, with more than one million teachers including higher education instructors, issues that have been increasingly visible in policy debates include teacher certification process and its locus (Duman, 1991; Kavcar, 2002; Saylan, 2013).

While four-year teacher education programs had been promoted since the early 80s with the foundation of schools of education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, 2007), in recent years additional challenges related to recruitment and career trajectories of teachers have been put forward, due in part to conflictual decisions to authorize Arts and Sciences faculties to offer accelerated teacher certification programs as alternative routes (Saylan, 2013).

While such alternative authorizations are presented as fair opportunities for those who seek careers as teachers after completing another undergraduate program, there is little mention of its impact on current pre-service teachers at schools of education. Some students at schools of education express a decrease in their interest in becoming teachers due to public representations and perceptions of the teaching profession (Çiftçi, Bekereci, Aslan, & Karaman, 2014).

Most recently, teacher quality and accreditation of schools of education have emerged as areas of emphasis in public discussions among teacher educators and policy makers (Doğanay et. al., 2015). All these recent developments also have links to public representation and perceptions of teacher identity (Taner & Karaman, 2013).

This paper explores these recent developments through a qualitative analysis based on an interpretation of relevant policy documents, records, and key studies.

Author

• A. Cendel Karaman, Middle East Technical University