Reflections of statism practices on Turkish national education

States have intervened in education in line with their own purposes and needs in almost every time period in history. In this study, the views and contributions of the Turkish states starting from first known Turkish state, the Asian Hun State, to the modern Republic of Turkey concerning education are outlined. Specifically, the reflections of the statism practices in the Atatürk period on education were investigated. It has been emphasized that Atatürk's statism principle is not limited to the economy, but also covers many other areas such as health, transportation, and education. The data obtained from one of the qualitative research techniques document analysis showed that the Turkish state, that aimed at adapting from a multinational structure to a modern, national structure during the Atatürk period, has considered education as a means to achieve its goals and intervened in education since its establishment. Governments of the modern republic issued laws, regulations and instructions, and arranged syllabuses and educational curricula. In order to increase the quality in both formal and non-formal education the state has carried out many studies. The state built new schools, opened literacy courses, provided course material, established new libraries, published periodicals, and provided scholarship opportunities to students and established non-formal education institutions. From these works of the state, we understand that the practices of statism in education started with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey before the practices of statism in the economy that would start in the 1930s. By the favor of the interventions in this period, education was given a national, secular, and democratic structure. The students received training in modern schools by the teachers who are experts in their fields. The students that were sent abroad for education, contributed to many fields, especially industry, agriculture, health, and education. The state taught literacy to adults through non-formal education institutions. Many services have been provided to the society in fields such as literature, art, history, agriculture, and health so that every member of the society is a modern individual.