First Grade to Fifth Grade: A Chaos Analysis

Abstract

Compulsory education 3in Turkey in the academic year 2012–2013 was reorganized to cover 4 years of primary school, 4 years of middle school, and 4 years of high school education. This regulation, which is popularly known as 4 + 4 + 4, has set up primary and secondary schools as independent schools. Through this arrangement, the age of starting primary school has been reduced to 66 months. This is taken as a basis to ensure the attendance of primary school children who are determined as being ready for primary school through written request of the children between the ages of 60 and 66 months and for direct pre-school education for other students who are not ready. As a result of the regulation regarding the age of starting primary school, children in different age groups (60 months/66 months/72 months/84 months) were enrolled in the first grade of primary school and had to be educated in the same class. This situation has caused many public debates. With the 4 + 4 + 4 intermittent education arrangement, the students who graduated from the fourth grade in the primary school and the fifth grade in the secondary school have made a further contribution to this much discussed (both politically and in public) education regulation. The 4 + 4 + 4 interdisciplinary education regulation, which has been publicly discussed in terms of political, social, cultural and economic aspects and which is generally aimed at ideological interpretations, entered the fifth year of education in 2016–2017 and the first students of this regulation have started their education in the fifth grade of secondary school. In this study, we analyze the process involved in the 4 + 4 + 4 intermittent education regulation—first grade to fifth grade. The fifth grade, which is impacted most by the intermittent education regulation, and the enforcer of the regulation, which is the other most affected group, are described in line with the views of branch teachers, and an attempt is made to evaluate the manifestations of problems in the middle school phase.