Generations of also rans

A brief email came from one of my readers. From a professor who is pursuing his scientific studies in Vienna, Professor Selim Aslan.
He passed on the league tables compiled as a result of the PISA (Programme for International StudentAssessment) assessment tests that are conducted every three years.
The message is brief. And it is poignant enough to make this scribe want to bang his head on his desk.
I am tempted to read the five or six-line message, translate the accompanying text into Turkish and have done with it. And leave those who hold themselves responsible for Turkey’s future alone with their troubles and cares.
It lays bare the standing (it might be better if I said ‘problem’)of the education service in today’s Republic. If you are curious, you can find the full details at the source. I will confine myself to the reader’s brief email.
Here it is:
“On average, we surpassed Trinidad, Thailand, Costa Rica and Qatar. That is, we are fifth from bottom.”
So much for all the boasts of those responsible!
“In science, we are behind Mexico and ahead of Bulgaria. Our score is 425.
The result in reading comprehension and precis writing is no different. We are behind Mexico and a tad ahead of Bulgaria. Our score is 428.
Turning to mathematics – it would be better not to. Only students in Chile performed more pitifully than ours. Our score is 420.”
The OECD conducts this assessment into 15-year-old youngsters. So, our young people who participated in this test were one-year-olds fourteen years ago.
The AKP came to power when those kids were aged one. It has ruled as a single party for fourteen years. These results attained by these children are the culmination over fourteen years of the “education reforms” for which the chap at the top of the AKP has no end of praise.
Did I not speak of the boasts of those responsible?
Let us not get sidetracked with nonsense like, “The AKP found the education system in ruins. It is gradually picking up.” The latest results show Turkey having regressed to its 2006 level in science and maths. As to literacy skills, they have fallen to below the 2003 level.
Did you hear the piteous speech that the leader of my people made a few days ago on Teachers’ Day?
If you did (and I both listened to it and read it line by line as my profession dictates) you will recall him waxing lyrical about 80-student classrooms being reduced in size to 20-30 and the “morning school – afternoon school” arrangement being consigned to history and how he puffed up with pride when speaking of the explosion in the number of teachers.
You will recall that at one time talk of “religious and vindictive generations” was all the rage in the country.
The result: Our education system has been overtaken by those of the Cyprus Greek Administration, Moldova and Albania and basks in “global success” to the extent of being fifth from last.
It does not take superior intelligence or expert knowledge of education to realise that a future of unemployment, want and ineptitude awaits these children. No future at all, in fact.
Let us not mince words:
Over the past fourteen years, we have raised “generations of also rans”.
I am hurting inside.
I penned this Claw Mark to share a bit of this grief.