A research on opinions of strengthening the vocational education and traning system in Turkey pilot vocational technical high scholls' administrators and teachers (Marmara region example)

The EU?s taking takes big steps to use Vocational and Technical Education as the most important employment tool, is of great importance for Turkey that has younger population than EU. But unemplayment is one of the greatest problems of Turkey. There fore educating its youth as qualified people in order to reach the EU?s standarts is a must for Turkey. For a long time, Turkey has been working to improve the quality of its labor force as well as the employment rates in every section of economy by developing vocational education system. This effort aims to make Turkey competable in world?s top economies and become more profound in the process of Turkey?s EU application. In Turkey, Strengthening The Vocational Education and Training System (SVET) project has been accepted both by Turkish Government and the EU and also is one of the main activities of Turkey to fulfill EU?s needs. The main target of the project is to realize a modern, life-long learning oriented, versatile, flexible and a qualified education system that meets the socioeconomic needs of the country. SVET is generally concerned with the modernization and the support of the vocational education system, as well as with the role of social co-operators. In fact, having the social partners? care more for the vocational educations? institutional and educational problems is one of the key points that will make vocational education belong to society, balance the submission and demand in education and create suitable conditions for local and central education reforms successfully. In Turkey, four staff members actively work for this project in pilot vocational schools. The school manager and project vice-manager are responsible for reports and projects to make the project and modular education system work properly in the institution. The Leader of Change Teachers and Program coordinators are responsible for conveying new teaching methods and technologies to other teachers in the school. In the research, the duty has been inquired about the success of the project. The research is bounded in the pilot vocational and technical schools in the Marmara Region. The findings show that source groups have parallel opinions about the project. Using the findings of the research, some suggestions have been made by emphasizing the utilities of vocational and technical education about raising the needed manpower of the country.