The new academic year has started in Türkiye
The 2023-2024 academic year rang the bell after the summer vacation for over 20 million students and nearly 1.2 million teachers in primary and secondary education institutions affiliated with the Ministry of National Education (MEB) across the country.
Students, teachers and parents experienced the excitement of the first day of school on Monday morning. Preschoolers, first graders and ninth graders received orientation training last week. Special guidance for students and families starting the fifth grade of middle school this year will last until Sept. 15.
The Ministry of National Education delivered free textbooks and auxiliary resources to students within the scope of preparations for the 2023-2024 academic year, in which 20.48 million students and 1.178 million teachers will participate.
The new academic year started in 74,000 schools and 744,000 classrooms. Out of 45,000 new teachers who joined the education family this year, 21,560 will work in the earthquake-hit southern region.
The ministry made a series of changes in education processes this year. With the legislative regulations, absenteeism conditions in high schools were rearranged, grade repetition was reintroduced, and transitions to open education were made more difficult.
On the other hand, exams in high schools will strictly require in-person attendance. Personal data of students cannot be processed without the explicit consent of the parent, guardian or relevant person, except for the cases stated in Law No. 6698 that enable the processing of personal data without the explicit consent of the person.
On Sunday, the ministry published an umbrella regulation regarding exams held in schools for the first time. The MEB Measurement and Evaluation Regulation stipulated that all exams of courses taught by more than one teacher in schools should be held in written form.
Many innovations, such as the use of open-ended and short-answer questions in written exams to be held by teachers in schools, joint written exams, the implementation of an exam week, and the exams of Turkish language, literature and foreign language courses to measure four language skills, will be implemented with the new term.
