Evaluation of views of the students towards the elective religion courses in secondary schools: Gaziantep province example

The most fundamental change that takes place in the education system of Turkey is surely the advent of elective religion courses. With this change, the students reached the freedom of selecting the courses such as the Life of Prophet Muhammad, the Quran and Basic Religious Information as well as compulsory education of religion and ethics. As of the years 2012-2013, those courses, which were put into practice, were significantly appreciated by the students and their guardians, and it raised the opportunity to meet the deficit. This study states the satisfaction, aims and hopes of the students, who are educated in secondary schools, while choosing those lessons. The study was conducted with 574 students, 8 schools by using survey method. In the light of the data, there are findings and evaluations in the subjects such as attention of students to the elective lessons, factors that are influential in the process of choosing the lessons, whether the lessons being chosen by the students in the following years or not etc. Key words: Education of Religion, Elective Lessons, Life of Prophet Muhammad, Basic Religious Information, Quran.