This African proverb perfectly highlights the importance of being able to adapt yourself to what is coming. And I could not find a better expression to describe what SELFIE means for the Turkish VET system. The COVID-19 pandemic had, and continues to have, a devastating impact on every single aspect of our lives throughout the world. And of course, education is no exception.
Let us first remember how the COVID-19 changed the tune in the Turkish educational system. In mid-March 2020, all schools in the country were closed due to the restrictions for COVID-19 pandemic. As you all know, the Turkish education system is a massive system with approximately 18.2 million students and 1.1 million teachers at K-12 level. Nine per cent (1.6 million) of these students and 13 per cent (144,255) of the teachers are in vocational and technical secondary education.
While 83.49% of the students are in the public vocational and technical high schools, 6.77% are in the private schools, and 9.74% in the open education system. There are 4,470 schools with 74,720 classrooms in vocational and technical secondary education in Turkey. Moreover, there are 187,257 students attending to vocational education centers. Looking at those figures, we can easily say that more than 25 million students have been affected by the school closures in Turkey due to COVID-19.
Development of digital skills for students and teachers has been the focal point of several official documents, including the MoNE’s most current Vision2023 document. COVID-19 has brought this subject to the fore, and the vital importance of digital skills and competencies has been acknowledged by all stakeholders.
When the SELFIE WBL Pilot project started in July 2020, we were not sure whether schools would be reopened in September. And, they did not. The pilot study was at stake since we might not reach up to targeted students, teachers and companies. Yet, the project team did not give up. We knew that wouldn’t have been a better time to apply SELFIE in the Turkish VET schools. At the same time, the DG for VET at the Ministry has a long tradition and experience in quality monitoring and improvement practices through its 360-degree quality measurement and monitoring system at VET schools. Unfortunately, those exercises were interrupted as well due to the school closures. At this point, SELFIE Pilot for WBL has entered into the picture as a novel self-assessment tool for digital skills and capacity.
A total of 23 Schools, 28 Companies, 7301 Students, 1089 Teachers, 170 School Leaders and 87 In-Company Trainers have participated the pilot study. Continuous communication and interaction has been crucial, so I created a WhatsApp group with all school coordinators. Even though there were some challenges for school coordinators to complete the exercise, they were all genuinely committed to complete the pilot study because they knew that SELFIE would provide a comprehensive guideline to assess their digital skills and discover their future needs. In qualitative interviews, I was glad to hear that all coordinators reconfirmed the usefulness of the SELFIE tool to evaluate the IT infrastructure and digital skills of the people at their schools. During the webinar we held on the 4th of December, the MoNE’s representatives declared that SELFIE would be the essential instrument for the self-evaluation process of the VET schools in Turkey.
So, when the tune changes, I mean when the music changes, so does the dance. I am happy to witness that the Turkish Minister of National Education has responded this situation so swiftly and instantly. This is a very good example of what we can do when we adapt ourselves to what is coming. The future has a lot to offer when we are able to do that.
Teşekkürler Orhan hocam. Desteğiniz çok önemliydi.