Over the past two decades, participation in education in Türkiye has expanded significantly: participation in primary and lower secondary education is now universal and, in 2018, over 90% of 15-year-olds were enrolled in education.
Over the same period, student performance has improved. On average, 10-13 year-olds in Türkiye now perform better than children of the same age across other countries that participate in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Fifteen-year-olds today score on average 45 points higher in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) than their peers in 2003.
This trajectory of improvement stands out internationally because Türkiye has been able to bring previously out-of-school children – who generally perform poorer than their in-school peers – into the education system and improve performance at the same time.
This report provides a picture of how student performance has evolved over this period and analyses how factors related to student backgrounds – such as gender or socio-economic status – are associated with performance. By analysing the PISA and TIMSS data, the report focuses on the following questions:
How do students in Türkiye perform in the main domains of mathematics, science and reading across schooling, compared to other countries?
How has the performance of students in Türkiye changed over time and across different levels of schooling?
Are there certain student characteristics that are associated with lower (or higher) performance in Türkiye? How do these associations change and develop as students progress through school?
How are school-level characteristics and features associated with performance? Do these associations change depending on the level of schooling?
Are there certain domains or aspects of learning in specific domains where students in Türkiye excel? What are the weaknesses of students in Türkiye across the main domains?