Special education in Turkey from proclamation of the republic to present day (1923-2007)

The aim of this study is to determine the evolution of the institutions serving about special education in the context of fundemental policies and legal arrangements related to special educational field of Government of the Republic of Turkey from 1923 to 2007. This study is based on literature survey by using the historical method.It is a very well-known fact that nearly %12 percent of Turkey population is made up of disabled people who needs to get special education. So these people, who makes up a notable percentage of population, should have certain rights in terms of social, cultural and political aspects and should benefit from the educational rights that has been granted to the others. Republic of Turkey has made the necessary arrangements to enable these diabled people to lead independent lives and to make them useful for the society. For this reason, educational rights that take these disabled people's needs and characteristics into consideration have been enacted. While determining the educational politics,it is known that the Law, the clauses concerned with education, government programme,development plans and Public Education Councils play an important role. In this respect, by taking the politic and legal developments into consideration, two basic periods are determined consisting the years 1923-1960 and 1961-2007. For each period, the current Law, the laws and the regulations concerning the education, the Public Education Councils that have been held within these periods , special education committees, youth councils, governmental programmes and development plans including the concerned periods and special education schools and institutions have been discussed. As a result, it has been detected that services that have been done for the sake of special education have shown a constant development within the first years of the Republic of Turkey. However, inconsistencies have been seen between the previous policies and the implementations.