With the enactment of the Law on the Teaching Profession and the subsequent establishment of the National Education Academy, the discourse that the injustice of the interview, which had the most impact on the education public, especially on the 2023 KPSS applicants, was abolished and that these two pieces of legislation would be valid for teacher appointments from now on began to prevail.
Contrary to popular belief, the provisions of the legislation show that interviews have not been abolished, but have changed their form and become more refined.
Explain!
Article 10 of the ‘Success in preparatory education’ section of the Law on the Teaching Profession states: ‘In order to determine the level of success in reflecting the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors acquired in preparatory education to the teaching environment, the prospective teacher is evaluated three times. This evaluation is carried out by the educational staff responsible for the practice, the principal of the educational institution where the practice is carried out and the practice teacher; based on the teaching profession competencies determined by the Ministry, on the evaluation form created by the Academy according to the teaching assignment areas. The evaluation score is determined by taking the arithmetic average of the scores given on the evaluation forms filled in separately by the educational staff responsible for the practice, the principal of the educational institution and the practice teacher. Twenty percent of the first evaluation score, thirty percent of the second evaluation score, and fifty percent of the third evaluation score are taken to determine the practical course success score. Those who have a practical course success score of seventy and above out of one hundred are considered successful. Those who fail the practical courses are dismissed from the Academy. At the end of the preparatory education, forty percent of the arithmetic average of the success grades of the theoretical courses and sixty percent of the arithmetic average of the success grades of the practical courses are added together to determine the success score for appointment.’.
According to this provision, the preparatory training at the National Education Academy will include theoretical and practical courses. Since the evaluations for the theoretical courses will be in the form of written exams, it does not seem possible to apply any nepotism under normal circumstances.
However, when it comes to the evaluation practice, things change! This is because the evaluation will be carried out by the education personnel responsible for the implementation determined by the Ministry of National Education through an ‘interview’, the director of the educational institution to be implemented selected by the Provincial-District Directorates of National Education and the implementation teacher to be determined by the Provincial-District Directorates of National Education.
Education personnel, almost all of whom will be members of unions close to the ruling bloc, and school principals and teachers, who will be selected from among the members of the same unions by the Provincial and District Directorates of National Education appointed by the Ministry of National Education, will be the sole decision-makers in preparatory education.
Those who have a practical course success score of seventy out of one hundred and above are considered successful. Those who fail the practical courses will be dismissed from the Academy, and according to the provision, teacher candidates will not be appointed until they pass the approval of these officials.
In short, the practice of interviewing for teacher appointments in the Ministry of National Education has not been abolished, but has changed its form and become more refined.