Recently, one of the most important issues in our education system is the issue of teachers waiting to be appointed. In our education system, there is currently a norm staff deficit of nearly 100 thousand. Although the Ministry of National Education emphasizes in its discourse that there is no norm staff deficit, the number of teachers working as paid teachers confirms the norm staff deficit.
When the Ministry of National Education says that there is no shortage of norm staff, they mean teachers who are overstaffed in big cities due to various excuses. However, these colleagues have to work in these centers due to spouse status and health status. In other words, they are exercising their legal rights. In order to determine how many teachers are needed, it would be sufficient to look at the number of paid teachers as well as the number of norm staff vacancies.
Norm staff deficits, the number of paid teachers and inadequate appointments rightly put teachers waiting for appointments in a state of expectation. In this sense, three groups of teachers have expectations.
The first group is the expectation of 1 611 teachers who passed the KPSS in 2023 and qualified for the quota, but were excluded from the quota after interviews,
The second group is the expectation of teachers who took the 2024 KPSS and scored high scores but could not be appointed due to the low number of 15 thousand appointments,
The third group is the expectation of teachers who are frustrated by the fact that with the enactment of the Law on the Teaching Profession, teacher appointments were transferred to the National Education Academy and the low quota of 10,000 teachers was set.
Starting with the first group, the 2023 KPSS applicants took the exam knowing that the KPSS results would be rounded up to a whole number according to the legislation in force and established practices before the exam was administered. Before the local elections, the President, the former Minister of National Education Mr. Mahmut Özer and other government officials had promised to abolish interviews.
After the 2023 KPSS results were announced, the Minister of National Education, Mr. Yusuf Tekin, announced that those who had a quota in the 2023 KPSS should not worry, and that they did not even need to take the 2024 KPSS. The 2024 interview process, which started in the summer of 2024, resulted in so many incomprehensible practices that it would take pages to write about each one!
It was obvious that the interview practices would not be scientific and objective, that each commission would not be able to make similar evaluations, that commission members would not be able to evaluate prospective teachers according to their branches, that different scores would be given in each province, that prospective teachers would not be able to fully reflect their potential due to health problems, and that they might experience excitement or stress during the interview. Despite all these negativities, MoNE insisted on the interview!
With the announcement of the interview schedule and the start of the process, the entire education public agreed that the interviews would be unfair and unjust. Unfortunately, what was expected happened and unfair practices took place from province to province and commission to commission. In some provinces, rounding was done while in others high scores were given.
Today, teachers who have been victimized by the interview continue to take legal action through administrative lawsuits, as well as various actions and activities to create public opinion.
The second group of expectant teachers are those who took the 2024 KPSS. The confusion caused by the 15,000 teacher appointments announced on April 15, 2025 with 2024 KPSS scores, which was also the lowest number of appointments in history, peaked with the unfair branch distribution announced by MoNE on April 18.
In the 2024 KPSS 15 thousand appointments, the Ministry gave a total of 10 thousand 588 quotas to these 4 branches such as 4 thousand 387 quotas for classroom teaching, 3 thousand 87 quotas for special education, 1 thousand 802 quotas for religious culture, 1 thousand 321 quotas for pre-school, and 4 thousand 412 quotas for the remaining 72 branches such as 27 quotas for biology, 28 quotas for history, and 29 quotas for literature.
Frustrated by these low quotas, 2024 KPSS students are still looking for their rights and forming a community for additional appointments.
The third group is the expectation of teachers who took the ECS and were given a very low quota of 10,000. The quota for the National Education Academy was as low as 10 thousand and the opening of the National Education Academy was postponed from September to January 2026. Thousands of candidates who graduated from education faculties of universities and took the Ministry of National Education Academy Entrance Exam focused on teacher appointments.
Currently, there is no official announcement that the quotas for teacher appointments will be increased. However, some journalists' public posts indicate that there have been some negotiations between the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Treasury and Finance.
In this sense, Minister Yusuf Tekin said, “We estimate that in the first week or the first 15 days of December, we will announce how many teachers we need from which branch according to these new calculations.“.
As can be seen, 2023 interview victims, 2024 KPSS high-scoring teachers and young teachers who were not appointed due to insufficient quotas as a result of AGS are in great anticipation.
In an education system where the number of paid teachers is approaching 100 thousand and the number of vacancies in the norm staff is around 100 thousand, it is not possible to carry out a healthy educational activity and fully realize children's right to education.
The education public and teachers who expect to be appointed should be given additional quotas, especially the restoration of the rights of 1611 interview victims, additional appointments for 2024 KPSS holders and additional quotas for teachers who will start training at the National Education Academy.