A comparative study of teacher training and appointment system in Japan, Finland and Turkey

The first thing comes to mind while realizing a regulation aimed to make an improvement in the system of education is related to the regulations which concern educating, selecting, appointing and improving in-service training activities of teachers who are one of the most essential and irreplaceable elements of the education system. This study is realized under the purposes of analyzing the procedures of training, selection, appointment and in-service education systems of teachers, which are in-use in Japan and Finland, and by this way developing proposals devoted to the current system regarding these activities in Turkey. Japan and Finland are selected and elaborated as sample countries in this comparative-descriptive education research due to being one of the pioneer countries and having great success in education which is thought to be thanks to teachers. Within the context of this study, it is aimed to reach up-to-date data by analyzing the papers, dissertations, assertions and reports published inland or around the world and reached from the internet or university libraries prepared for elaborating the education and teacher training systems of these countries via general survey model, and horizantal approach is preferred to analyze the data correspondingly. These two sample countries' educational systems are described individually, then these countries' systems are compared with the system in-use in Turkey for teacher training, selecting, appointing, in-service education and teachers' rights and responsibilities are analyzed under the same headings, and the determined similarities and differences are also analyzed. At the end of the study, it is observed that instead of applying only the single exam system for selecting candidates as in Turkey, Japan and Finland have the interviewing and application exam stages which follow the exam stage accepted as the first stage of selecting a teacher. Moreover, it is seen that, these countries give great importance to the application phase realized in pre-service stage and in contrast to Turkey in appointment period the candidates are asked regional requirements which show that the terms of appointment necessitates more qualifications. Furthermore, it is inferred that in-service education is supported and the socio-economic situation of teachers is better. Finally, by taking all these data into consideration, the weak points recommended to be changed in the education system of Turkey are discussed and proposals are developed for studies to be held on this topic.