High School Curriculum
High school in Turkey covers Grades 9 to 12. Grade 12 was a relatively recent addition in 2008. Students have approximately 45 contact periods (40 minutes each) per week over 180 days per year. The number of hours may vary according to programme and grade year.
High School Status
In the late 90’s the Ministry of Education changed the compulsory education level for school children from Grade 5 to Grade 8, and at the same time moved these three grades from the secondary schools to the primary schools. At that time, therefore, High Schools lost their traditional middle school aged students to primary schools and became smaller institutions.
There was previously a bewildering number of types of high schools in Turkey (65 types): specialised science high schools, Anatolian high schools, professional high schools (computing, catering, mechanics, teaching, etc.), and regular high schools, to mention but a few. However, this changed in September 2011, and again in 2016, when such traditional distinctions disappeared. One type now remains, viz. Anatolian High Schools.
Özel Bilkent High School currently has the status of an Anatolian High School in the eyes of the Ministry of Education, which gives it the right to teach a large portion of its curriculum in English. In the past Anatolian high schools had a preparatory year in which students studied English almost full-time for the whole year so that they would be ready to study their other subjects in the medium of English. Successive reforms meant that the preparatory year became rare. However, the High School has decided to reinstate a preparatory year starting from the 2019-20 academic year. Thus, current 7th Grade students in the Middle School will have to take an entrance exam to decide whether they can enter directly into Grade 9 in the High School , or whether they need to develop their English language further prior to entry during a preparatory year.
Entry to high school is competitive for the better schools, and was previously based on performance in the end of middle school education exam (TEOG) which took place at the end of each of the two semesters in Grade 8. However, the TEOG exam has been discontinued and there is currently some uncertainty as to how selection will be made for competitive entry into High Schools.
Grades 9 and 10 Curriculum
The Grades 9 and 10 curriculum covers Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Turkish, English, Second Foreign Language, Social Studies, Sports and a choice of electives from Music, Art, Computing. All students are required to take these courses and performance will be a deciding factor in which areas they specialise in Grades 11 and 12.
Grades 10 – 12: Choosing a Field of Study
At the end of Grade 10 students need to decide which areas they wish to specialize in. This is an important decision for students and families as it determines, to a large extent, those faculties that students will be able to apply to for their university studies. The Science and Mathematics option is considered by many to be the most desirable section to be in as this opens up potential study in medical and engineering faculties. The Özel Bilkent High School currently has programs in Science/Mathematics, or Turkish/Mathematics, both of which offer the widest access to desirable career destinations.
Students in the high school have also the option to study the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme (IBDP). Students who are interested in the IBDP have to fulfill the requirements for the programme. Grade 10 offers a pre-IB program for those students who wish to enrol as candidates for the full IBDP programme in years 11 and 12.
Grades 11 – 12: Curriculum
The field of study chosen determines the subjects studied.
The Science/Mathematics stream focus mainly on Math, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, along with Turkish, English and a second foreign language. They also have elective choices which are similar to those in Grades 9 and 10,
The Turkish/Mathematics stream studies Turkish Literature and Language, Social Studies (Geography and History), Philosophy, along with English and another foreign language (French or German). Again students have a choice of elective courses, too.
The Language of instruction in the non-IB classes is mainly Turkish; in the IB classes it is mainly English.
The National University Exam
At the end of High School, in addition to getting a high school diploma, all students also enter the national university selection exams. These are multiple choice exams which test general aptitude and subject specific knowledge of the high school curriculum. The exam has undergone a major revision in the 2017-18 academic year. Students now sit the national university entrance exams in June, at the end of the academic year in Math, Science, Turkish, Social Studies (and optional English). University departments require results from a certain weighted combination of subjects in the university exam. Engineering would require higher weightings in science, and so on. Students are ranked nationally and those with the highest relative grades get to chose the best university places for their chosen careers. Those who score particularly well can also be awarded a scholarship to cover the costs of their education, with a stipend.
Students choose universities based on their announced scores, and submit their ranked list of preferred options. The national testing centre (ÖSYM) allocates students to universities depending on choice and demand. This is a delicate process as setting one’s sights too high can exclude a student from a particular faculty and leave them with no university to go to, or can mean being assigned to a lower level university course than might be available for the grades earned.
Inevitably, the nature of the national selection exam means that cram schools are common and students often spend much of their final year in school, and even before that, cramming with the hope of increasing their scores in the University exam. Cram schools were severely curtailed a number of years ago, but new styles of cram schools have arisen from the ashes, as it were, offering more or less the same type of cram courses for the university exam, only under different names.
After the government decided to eliminate external cram schools from the country, many high schools incorporated ‘cramming’ into the programs that they offer, which means that many private high schools operate additional classes on top of their regular programmes to prepare students to take the multiple choice university exam, or offer a main stream curriculum which focuses almost exclusively on the demands of the university exam’s multiple choice underpinning.
The Özel Bilkent High School, on the other hand, is committed to a curriculum which reflects a modern pedagogical approach based on critical and creative thinking, requiring students to communicate effectively, to develop reflective skills, and to adopt an internationally-minded perspective.