Turkish students face constant struggle in summer break

ANKARA - At last, the summer comes and about 17.5 million Turkish students began their nearly three-month break. But some of them will have to continue studying for next year in order to be successful in several exams that will determine their future.

"This exam system has negative effects on students. Children as well as their parents live in a constant struggle and pressure if they want a good school," said Secil Sezer, a 44-year-old mother of two living in a neighborhood of Cankaya in capital Ankara.

A few days ago her son, 17, passed the undergraduate placement examination, one of the main exams that a student has to do from age 12 in order to pursue higher education before going to the college entrance exam,organized by the Assessment, Selection and Placement Center.

"The whole family got mobilized on the moral and material levels for our son to be accepted in a respectable university in a big city ... Otherwise, we will be frustrated, especially my son, who worked hard and spent his time studying at home rather than socializing with his friends," Sezer said.

And this is not all as some top universites may also want students to take a special talent exam in order to be accepted among the lucky few.

There are important exams that determine a student's future, from secondary school to high school and from high school to university. But you need to take a course outside schools, because the public schools fall short of the necessary curriculum to pass the exams. This means that families spend a lot of money for their children to take special courses or private lessons.

A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on student well-being showed that Turkish students were among the unhappiest in the world. They had high anxiety and low expectations, it said.

The survey found Turkish students had the worst life satisfaction, with more than 20 percent saying that they were not content.

Career expectations

This is explainable by the fact that once accepted by an university after a centralized exam, it might not meet students' career expectations. Thus, according to official statistics, most of the students are not pleased by their majors. Also in recent years, this massive centralized exam institution has been hit by controversy about the trustworthiness of results.

In December, the results of the Program for International Student Assessment, which is conducted by the OECD, dropped from 44th to 49th compared to 2012.

The OECD operates the triennial survey of 15-year-old students around the world as part of PISA, which assesses the reading, mathematics and science skills of students near the end of their compulsory education.

Xinhua