Vocational Education in Turkey

Abstract

With the emergence of nation states in the 19th century, schools were transformed into platforms not only for building modern citizens, but also for gathering the manpower needed by various industries. Turkey was one of the countries where educational institutions were structured in accordance with the construction process of the nation state. Modern Turkey was founded after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, and education became instrumental in the process of reconstructing its society in a transforming world. In the early Republican period, reference was made to Europe in the main. From the 1950s onwards, however, it is possible to observe a shift in the educational center of reference towards the USA. This background to the historical process is critical for understanding the current form of vocational education in Turkey. In this chapter, the story of vocational education in the historical process is told, and the current state of formal secondary and post-secondary education institutions is discussed.