Page 31 - IO1-Report

KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for School Education
The Universal Language of Mathematics (2018-1-TR01-KA201-059704)

3.4. Survey data from the Turkish Education System

(Conducted by Turkey Youth Clubs Confederation on the integration of refugee pupils into
national school education)

This survey investigates the real-life situation in integrating refugee pupils (RS) into Turkish Education
System (TES). To this end, it aims to measure the level of 1) communication of RS with Turkish students,
2) communication of RS with their teachers, and 3) school life adaptation of RS. In addition, this survey
explores whether math course can be used as a practical tool to intensify the integration progress of
RS. In line with the general logic of the Universal Language of Mathematics (ULM) project, math course
can be taught without extensive usage of national language of education system. Thus, refugee
students, whose knowledge of host country’s national language is very low (if any), can learn math
along with learning national language. Being able to learning math promotes the self-confidence of RS
and facilitates their integration into national education system.
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The survey was conducted in capital city of Turkey, namely Ankara between, 25 May and 14 June
2019. By visiting 14 middle schools, 383 refugee and 342 Turkish students were surveyed. Based on
official data obtained from Ministry of National Education (MEB), the middle schools which were be
visited were selected but the distribution of class and sex of the students were determined according to
the number of present students during visits. Thus, distributions represent the real-life situations of
middle schools in Ankara.
3.4.1. Communication of Refugee Students with Turkish Students

The first and the most important sign of the integration of students is their communication among
themselves. Therefore, this survey aims to firstly reveal the communication frequency/level of refugee
students (RS) with Turkish students. But before this point, age structure of RS in comparison with
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Turkish students is presented in Table-1. For students attending 5 -class, the average age of RS, which
is 11,77, is higher than the age of regular class in TES which is represented by Turkish students. In
other words, RS are almost 10 months older than Turkish students and the difference is statistically
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significant. Similarly, average age of RS attending 6 -class (i.e. 12,92) is also higher than the average
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of regular class (11,83). Thus, on average RS are 14 months older than Turkish students at 6 -class.
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This fact is valid for both 7 and 8 classes too. But the age gap is closing through classes and reduces
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to 2 months for 8 -class which is statistically insignificant.

5th-class 6th-class 7th-class 8th-class
Refugee 11,77 12,92 13,28 14,03
Turkish 10,97 11,83 12,87 13,83
Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys
Refugee 11,76 11,78 12,86 13,00 13,32 13,23 14,00 14,11
Turkish 10,88 11,07 11,76 11,90 12,83 12,96 13,78 13,91
Table – 1: Average age of students

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