Legal framework of compulsory pre-school education

When compulsory education is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is basic education, but today, the general tendency is to increase the duration of compulsory education. In this context, it is seen that in addition to basic education, pre-school education and secondary education are also included in the scope of compulsory education. With the transition to the 4+4+4 education system in our country, the duration of compulsory education has been increased from 8 years to 12 years, but pre-school education is not included in the scope of compulsory education. The fact that the pre-school period is the period when children's mental and physical development is the fastest, the return on investment in pre-school education is much higher than other levels of education, and the aim of ensuring equality of opportunity in education brings about discussions on including pre-school education within the scope of compulsory education. Compulsory preschool education has generally been addressed by the education doctrine and the legal dimension of the issue has been ignored. However, in compulsory preschool education, there are three subjects, namely the state, the parent and the child, and it emerges as a result of the conflict of rights and obligations between these subjects. In making preschool education compulsory, there is a conflict between the state's authority to raise its citizens, the parents' right to raise their children and the child's right to education and development. In the study, the rights, powers and responsibilities of these three subjects and the conflicts between these rights, powers and responsibilities were evaluated also by taking into account the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.