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Turkey: Health & Education
Health services remain sadly underdeveloped in Turkey with few hospital beds, and few doctors in rural areas. Health centres are dispersed all around the country, but critical services can only be provided in larger cities. There is one hospital bed for every 440 inhabitant, which is not very bad, but there isa low number of doctors. Child mortality is still as high as more than 5%, and the average life expectancy almost 10 years below European average.
Turkish system of education has been given a lot of attention, especially on getting the figures on adult illiteracy down. Hence, illeteracy is now reported to have disappeared, but it is not all to many years ago that these figures were as high as 20%. The primary schools of Turkey have a secular curriculum, but the quality of the education varies strongly, and not necessarily from city to countryside alone. Children start at school at the age of 6. 95% of all Turkish children attend this. 5 years of compulsory primary school are followed up by 3 years of secondary school. Approximately 55- 60% of all Turkish children continue to secondary school. While the curriculum in primary and secondary schools is secular, Turkey has 400 schools for religious training, called Imamate Lycees, which are attended by 350,000 pupils. Higher religious training is conducted in 16 Islamic Theological Lycees, attended by some 2,000 students.
After primary and secondary schools, Turkey offer lower education at technical and vocational schools, attended by close to 1 million students.
The Turkish university system is reported to be of good standard, but many of the country's 54 universities have less to offer than one normally expects from a university. Major universities, as in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, holds normal high standards. As many as 750,000 students attend higher education, of which 16,000 are foreign citizens.
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By: Tore Kjeilen
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