Awareness of Early Childhood Period Workshop in Turkey: Current Status, Conclusions and Recommendations

The aim of this study is to examine the opinions, suggestions and findings obtained from "Awareness of Early Childhood Period Workshop" organized by Association for the Development of Early Childhood Education in Turkey which... [ view full abstract ]

The aim of this study is to examine the opinions, suggestions and findings obtained from "Awareness of Early Childhood Period Workshop" organized by Association for the Development of Early Childhood Education in Turkey which is the representative of OMEP in Turkey. It is aimed to contribute to the field by sharing current problems and solutions concerning early childhood education in Turkey with other institutions and organizations working on early childhood education in different countries. The workshop, held on 18-19-20 November 2016 in Eskişehir under the leadership of OMEP Turkey. It was organized in cooperation with the Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Primary Education. Nearly a hundred of people from different professional fields who work for children like academicians, teachers and representatives of non-governmental organizations participated to the workshop.

The previous aim of the workshop was to define fundamental agenda concerning “Early Childhood Period” in Turkey, put forward basic problems and to find solutions to these on the basis of scientific ground. In this context, prior to the workshop, opinions of members of the association and the participants of the workshop were taken about the agenda. Five most requested topics were identified namely "Early Childhood and Education", "Early Childhood and Migration", "Early Childhood and Abuse", "Early Childhood and Values" and "Early Childhood and Family in Social Context". These topics were debated in the working groups. Findings obtained from the working groups at the end of the workshop showed that there are limitations in Turkey in terms of reaching facilities in early childhood education  so poor/immigrant children have become even more limited in this respect. Various solutions and models have proposed for each topic in order to put them into practice for high benefit of children.