1.2 million school-aged children not enrolled in education in Turkey

A total of 1.2 million school-aged children are not enrolled in the education system in Turkey, showed an analysis of the data released by the Education Ministry and Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK). An academic told Independent Turkish that the number of children out of school is in fact more than 4 million when the refugees are also included.

Friday September 16 2022 10:05 pm

Duvar English

Turkey’s Education Ministry last week released the data on school enrollment for the 2021-2022 education year. According to the data, 1.2 million children in the country are out of school, reported the online news outlet Independent Turkish.

The news outlet said that it reached this figure by comparing the child statistics provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) and the school enrollment data of the Education Ministry.

Of the five-year-olds, 219,000 are out of school, whereas this number is 222,000 for the age group 6-9 years, 236,000 for the age group 10-13 years, and 524,000 for the age group 14-17 years.

Also, there are an additional 1.7 million children receiving distance education and 401,000 children in vocational training. When these numbers are included, the total number of children not enrolled in face-to-face education rises to 3.3 million.

Prof. Dr. Adnan Gümüş from Çukurova University commented on the Education Ministry’s report, saying that the number of children out of school is in fact more than 4 million when the refugees are also included.

He also pointed out that there are several other children who are enrolled in the school system but are not attending classes, and with their inclusion, the number of children absent from education might exceed 6 million.