7th World Conference on Educational Sciences, Athens, Greece, 5 - 07 February 2015, vol.197, pp.1827-1834
The aim of this study is to compare the structure of compulsory education in Turkey and Kazakhstan. The study is descriptive. Laws, legislations, and practices regarding compulsory education in Turkey and Kazakhstan will be analyzed and a comparison between the practices of both will be compared in this study. It took a long time before raising compulsory education to eight years in Turkey. This change is initiated with Primary Education Law, No. 222 entered into force in 1961; however, intermittent education became compulsory in the whole country with the law No. 4306. Reconstruction started after Kazakhstan gained independence and education system was influenced by those changes. After gaining independence, reform movements regarding higher education and compulsory education were initiated. Education was compulsory for 11 years and the school system was formed as general middle education. There are 8573 schools that serve approximately 3 million students. With law No. 861 entered into force in 2006, compulsory education was raised to 11 years. In the same year, compulsory education has been structured as 4+5+2 and pilot studies are planned to be held in the country between 2006 and 2016. Still, there are pilot studies in 107 schools. While compulsory education for 12 years has been adopted for the whole country in Turkey in 2012-2013, pilot studies have started in 2006 in Kazakhstan Republic and it is aimed to generalize the practice to the country based on the results of pilot studies after 2016. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.