Social Policy for Education: Assessing Needs of Turkey

Social policies generally refer to the social welfare interventions aimed to resolve social problems on employment, housing, education, health and social services. Education, as a major field of welfare system, is quite significant for social policy framework. Hence, social welfare state has important responsibilities on providing education facilities and services for whole society. At this point, there is a strong need for effective policies which can resolve problems in education settings and optimise education processes for best learning and teaching. When examining the case of Turkey, it can be seen that there are some social policy practices in education which mainly consist of social assistance programs and social responsibility initiatives. Stipends, course materials and other supports for students, food and housing services of schools, preventive health services are some of welfare practices for education. There are also some education policies pursued by National Education Ministry to increase schooling rates at all education levels, decrease drop-out rates, bring more special education facilities into service and provide technical and material support for all government schools. Besides, some civil initiatives and private institutions conduct various projects to improve vocational education, promote school attending and provide needed equipments for schools. Unfortunately, all these efforts can not be an effective and holistic framework towards solution of school problems. It is obvious that there has been various ongoing social problems in school settings in Turkey such as violence, harassment, substance abuse, family-related problems, mental health problems. There is a remarkable lack of social policy in this field. This actually indicate a need for enhanced social services and social work in schools. In this regard, this study suggests some effective social policies for education and refers to the significance of school social work services in Turkish school settings.