Page 32 - IO1-Report

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

To sum up, RS are older than Turkish students for all classes of middle schools in Turkish Education
System (TES). The age gap can be serious problem in communication among refugee and Turkish
students. Therefore, school managers and teachers should be aware of this fact and must be trained
by MEB to be able improve the communication among students at various ages.
This age-gap can be perceived as normal when the natural structure of refugee students is considered.
Since the movements of refugee children is out of the control of national education system, the age
structure of RS cannot converge to the age of regular classes in a short period of time. To investigate
this issue further, RS were asked for how long they have been in Turkey. The results are reported in
th
Table-2. For RS attending 5 -class, only 43% of them are at regular age of 5 -class and the rest 57%
th
are older. 76% of these older RS have been in Turkey for at least 4 years. In other words, the majority
of these RS cannot be included school life on time although they have been in Turkey. The situation is
th
th
th
th
same for 6 , 7 and 8 classes too. 70% of older RS at 6 -class, 89% of older RS at 7 -class and 80%
th
th
of older RS at 8 -class have been living in Turkey for at least 4 years (Table-2). Therefore, the age gab
problem in TES is a result of failure in timely inclusion of refugee children to school life.

5th-class 6th-class 7th-class 8th-class
Regular age 11 12 13 14
% of regular age 43% 36% 67% 69%
In Turkey more than 4 years 76% 70% 89% 80%
Table – 2: Age structure of refugee students

As a measure of integration of RS into school education, the communication frequency/level of RS with
Turkish students, teachers, refugee friends and their families in Turkish are exhibited in Table-3. As
expected, for both refugee girls and boys, the highest Turkish communication frequency is observed in
communication with Turkish friends. Then, talking with teachers comes in the second order. But the
difference is not statistically significant for neither girls nor boys. When girls and boys are compared,
refugee boys’ level of Turkish communication with Turkish friends and teachers is higher than refugee
girls’ level of communication. The difference between communication levels of boys and girls is
statistically significant for talking Turkish with Turkish friend and it is not for talking Turkish with teachers
(Table-4). Therefore, refugee girls need more support and encouragement to intensify their
communication level.

Family Refugee Friends Teachers Turkish Friends

Girls 1,74 ≈ 1,77 < 2,54 ≈ 2,57
Boys 1,48 < 1,9 < 2,62 ≈ 2,69
Table – 3: Refugee students’ talking frequency in Turkish. (Note-1: How often do you speak Turkish with your
family, native friends, teachers and Turkish friends? 3-Always, 2-Sometimes, 1-Rarely.
Note-2: The sign ≈ means that the difference is not statistically significant.)

29