The History of Development of
Turkish Elementary Teacher
Education and the Place of Science
Courses in the Curriculum
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Uşak Üniversitesi, Uşak, TURKEY
Publication date: 2007-12-23
EURASIA J. Math., Sci Tech. Ed 2007;3(4):327-341
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Turkey has more than 130 years of experience of elementary teacher education in formal
meaning after opening of the first elementary teacher school. During this time period,
approximately in every 10 years there were some major changes based on the level of
elementary teacher schools such as middle school, high school or higher education
institutes, the number of years of education, and the name and weekly hours of courses.
The average percentage of weekly hours of science or science related courses is around
9.69%. The highest percentage of weekly hours of science courses in the history of
Turkish elementary teacher schools with the range of 12.1% and 16% belongs to the
beginning of Republic or Atatürk era between 1923 and 1938 years. This also shows the
main approach of the era of Ataturk to the education as well as elementary teacher
education. The lowest percentage of weekly hours of science related courses as 2.1%
corresponded to the two-year higher education institutes during 1970s. It shows that this
period was the most neglected, and politicized era in Turkish elementary teacher
preparation and education. On the other hand, Turkish elementary teacher education has
begun to show acceleration in changing and takes its proper place in both qualitative and
quantitative meaning, such as increasing the level of elementary teacher education schools
to four-year college level institutions and the percentage of weekly hours of science related
courses.