We are now a country where the exam and education systems change or are updated nearly every few years. Constant alterations to systems that will shape students’ futures, without settling on a stable approach, leave students confused between different exam formats. Along with changing exam systems, curricula naturally shift as well. To give a clearer example: a student who starts primary school under one system will, by the time they graduate and move to secondary education, see headlines in the newspapers at least twice declaring “New High School Entrance Exam.”
With this context, we should note that the high school entrance and exam system has changed again this year. Recently, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan commented on the secondary education exam system and said he had given instructions for that exam to be removed. Shortly after those remarks, the process moved quickly: Minister of National Education İsmet Yılmaz announced that the secondary education entrance exam had been abolished and that work on the New High School Entrance Exam was underway. President Erdoğan also instructed that the new system should not be a centralized exam.
New High School Entrance Exam and Open-Ended Questions
Following these instructions, the General Directorate of Measurement, Evaluation and Examination Services at the Ministry of National Education reportedly sent a letter to provincial directorates of national education outlining preparation directives for the new exam to be applied to primary school students this year. This newly developed exam will be applied for the first time this year. Former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım briefly explained the new system, saying the New High School Entrance Exam “will include open-ended questions instead of answer choices like a, b, c.”
After Prime Minister Yıldırım’s statement that questions will be open-ended, more details about that system became a topic of interest. Open-ended questions are short-response items whose answers may be a single word, a number, or a sentence. The central common exam for 8th graders, which will be implemented for the first time in the first term of the 2017–2018 school year, is scheduled for November 29–30, 2017. Unlike previous years, the New High School Entrance Exam will include not only multiple-choice test items but also open-ended questions. The General Directorate of Measurement, Evaluation and Examination Services announced that the exam will initially apply to Turkish, Mathematics, and Science courses; of 20 questions per subject, 18 will be multiple choice and 2 will be open-ended.
New High School Entrance Exam Name and Pilot Provinces
After the abolition of the TEOG exam—the secondary education placement exam—questions arose about what the new system would look like and what it would be called. The replacement for TEOG was revealed in a letter sent by the Ministry of National Education to provincial directorates: the new pilot exam system was named the National Monitoring System (MİS). Work on this new system is ongoing. The New High School Entrance Exam, which will be called MİS, will include both open-ended and multiple-choice questions. It was decided to pilot the new system in 24 provinces. In addition to 15 metropolitan municipalities, the ministry indicated that Aydın, Bursa, Erzurum, Mardin, Mersin, Konya, Gaziantep, Kayseri and Trabzon would participate. The ministry stated that the new exam system is planned to reduce student stress and allow students more opportunities for social activities.