The legitimization of merit and inequality

Turkey is in a state of multifaceted decay and collapse. No matter where you look, you can see different whirlpools dragging the country into a quagmire. One of these is the whirlpool of poverty and lack of education…

When the deterioration in income distribution combines with a terrible education system and inequality of opportunity in education, poverty becomes the destiny of children from poor families. By poor families, I am not referring to the "bottom 20 percent" income group defined in income distribution statistics, as was the case in previous years. The policies implemented during the AKP era first brought the number of poor to the 40-50 percent level of the population, and with the policies of the last three years, the middle class in Turkey has been destroyed. In income distribution, four segments representing the poor, lower-middle, middle, and upper-middle classes—or "80 percent of the population"—have fallen below the poverty line. The system in education that breeds a submissive, "pious and vengeful generation" has completed its twentieth year. Religious sects, whose very existence is contrary to the constitution and laws, have entered high schools, then primary schools, and finally kindergartens with the power of the government.

The AKP government has rendered our human resources unskilled and unqualified through an ideological, religious education system. Our well-trained, merit-based youth, doctors, and engineers are fleeing abroad in the face of the government, the legal order, and the crude, aggressive attitude of an ignorant mass empowered by the government.

"Poverty becomes a destiny when combined with this education system," we said. Let us elaborate.

When an unqualified, uneducated person is appointed to any position in the public sector, we rightly react by citing "merit." We do have a small number of truly qualified people in that field. They take the written exam and succeed. In the interview, someone with no knowledge or talent takes their place. However, in a short time, we will not even be able to find qualified people raised by this education system. Because the state has now given up on providing children and youth with the education required by the age and the economy. Quality education will only be an opportunity for children of upper-income families who have the chance to attend private schools.

Today, the tuition for the top 5 private schools is 480 thousand liras per year for the first, and 380 thousand liras for the fifth. We are talking about 250 thousand liras per year for a mid-range private school. These costs are now unaffordable even for the second-richest 20 percent of the population, whom we used to call the upper-middle class. Let us move past the high school level. If a young person from a civil servant or worker family who graduated from a public high school in any city in Anatolia gets into an engineering department at Istanbul Technical University, is it possible for that young person to go to Istanbul and study? According to the Higher Education Quality Council Indicator Values Report, in 2021 and 2022, 728 thousand students dropped out of university, the majority of whom were in large cities. According to YÖK, there is a decrease of 798 thousand in the number of students choosing universities in Istanbul in 2023.

In the near future, for both the public and private sectors, the youth with merit will be those from upper-income families. The chance for those from lower-income groups to rise is as likely as the "shepherd who gets bird droppings on his head in the town square becoming king" as told in old fairy tales.

As inequality of opportunity in education deepens, achieving merit becomes a privilege reserved for children of upper-income families. Before the Industrial Revolution, before republican regimes were born, only the children of the nobility had the opportunity to receive a good education, and only they could reach the upper echelons of state administration. With the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, and republican regimes, the middle class was born; children of middle-class families received good education and took on high-level positions in both the state and the private sector, gaining high income opportunities. Especially after 1990, as the neoliberal trend became dominant and the state left education to the market, the opportunity to receive quality education once again became a privilege belonging to the children of upper-income families. Prof. Thomas Piketty, who has conducted extensive research on the inequalities created by the neoliberal system in the world, defines this situation in his book *Capital in the Twenty-First Century* as "seeking merit, falling into the trap of meritocracy, and legitimizing inequality," just as it was in the 16th and 17th centuries.

It is a fact that the religious education system based on superstitions, which leaves people unskilled and untalented, will deepen inequalities for future periods. So far, we have summarized the issue from the perspective of individuals' advancement, increasing their welfare, and changing social classes. The second and more important effect is this: An education system disconnected from the realities of the age is the biggest obstacle to social development and the increase of welfare.

The most important sources of wealth for a country's economy are its natural resources and human capital. Capital accumulation and technology accumulation are very important, but this capital and technology accumulation ultimately emerge from the accumulation of human capital.

In the agricultural sector, the service sector, and the industrial sector, the increase in labor productivity is the engine of economic growth, development, welfare increase, and wealth. Even if there is a pro-labor political party in power, increasing wages without increasing labor productivity would only be a regulation related to income distribution, but it would not be enough to increase economic development and welfare. For economic development to be achieved and welfare to increase, productivity in all production factors must increase. To increase the productivity of labor and capital, it is essential to move away from the education system based on superstitions as soon as possible and transition to an education system that directs children and youth toward analytical thinking, internalizes technology, raises free individuals, and instills democratic consciousness and sensitivity to human rights in state-citizen-society relations. Even if you transition to such a system, it is impossible to see the results in less than 15 years. Especially in a country like Turkey, where the education system has regressed by at least 300 years...

It is essential to have a well-trained workforce that can use and develop technology, and for this, quality education opportunities required by the age and the economy must be offered equally and free of charge to everyone, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, or living in rural or urban areas. This is what Europe, America, and Japan did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and what East Asia has done since the 1980s. The Republic of Turkey also embarked on a tremendous educational campaign in its early years. Unfortunately, it received its first wound with the counter-revolution that came after 1947, the path for religious sects was opened after 1980, the wound gradually worsened, and it was completely shattered during the AKP era.

The Republic's education system enabled a child working as a shepherd in a remote village in Anatolia to receive a good education in public schools and become a general manager, prime minister, or president in the state. (Süleyman Demirel) The Republic's education system enabled a child, one of eight children of a middle-class farming family in a district of Southeastern Anatolia, to receive a good education in public schools, become internationally renowned, and win the Nobel Prize in Physics. (Prof. Dr. Aziz Sancar) Countless examples can be multiplied in art, scientific life, engineering and medical sciences, the military, bureaucracy, business life, and politics. I think seeing similar examples in the coming period can only be explained by miracles.

There is a sentence I frequently emphasize in various articles and speeches. It is worth repeating: In the economy, current account deficits (external deficits and borrowing) bring misery and slavery, while deficits in education bring ignorance, medieval darkness, and severe misery.