Problems

Creating an interest in science, explorations and inventions in a society starts in children. But children in primary schools in Turkey  can not get satisfactory experimental science education  since teachers are not trained on experimental science methods ,  there is not science labs in most schools and those most of the labs are empty. It really will take time to train the 400 thousand teachers and enriching science labs with equipments is very expensive.  Community are not interested in experimentation and explorations since social awareness level   is not satisfactory.

Turkey is historically, culturally, philosophically  away from and uninterested in developing science, inventions and technology for the last 500 years.  Number of patents or invention for the last 100 years is very limited relatively and there is not any nobel prize in science yet. Till the last few years teaching  was the least preferred  profession . And most of the primary schools teachers do not now English and computers so that they can not develop themselves  and there is not satisfactory professional developmant activities and resources in experimental science education for a 100 years in Turkey.

Lack of interest in science , exploration, inventions and tecnology in the Turkish society resulted the country economically undeveloped relatively from the Ottoman empire years. Although in the first years of new Turkey Republic there was great effort in teaching, education and science they were not satisfactory  since society culturally and economically were not interested in education , science , exploration, inventions and tecnology development . So the number of young individuals who can inquire, invent, create and think scientifically and freely , who can explore experimentally are not increased. So the production of new technolgy and creation of new inventions leading to economic power in the country is very slow.

There are 10 million 300 thousand students in 36.000 primary schools in Turkey . Students attending to relatively developed , private schools are about %2 of the population. But the problem is approximately %99.9 of the students are affected by this problem. I will explain this fact by concrete examples in the proceeding paragraphs.

If this problem is not solved and ignored children when they grow and enter career and worklife they will not be interested in experimental exploration , scientific  and creative thinking  in heir jobs and their companies and products and services  will not be able to compete in the global economy. So the economic development  in new technologies will not accelerate and be slow.

When we look at Turkey’s last 30 years we see Tubitak’s young scientist development programs . But these programs are helpful  only for a small number of talented students in the secondary schools not primary schools. Interestingly there is not any professional organisation for science teachers in Turkey yet like NSTA which organise 55.000 science teachers at all levels in USA. In the years  1980 there was TV program for 26 weeks focusing on science experiments by Kenan Okan but in the following years similar programs have not been produced although the number of TV s increased. You can find a few books on science experiments for primary schools mostly translations but there is not any social interest that these books are not sold much.  A special competition for children sponsored by HP are done but it did not continue. Another campaign named  “Science bag„ for kids powered by.  There a few science centers only in big cities but the effect in the society is very limited and since the equipments are very expensive int hese centers the number of the centers can not increase. Sometimes private primary schools organise science fairs locally but their effcet is limited only with their students and generally upper primary students can participate these fairs.