An education system that enables analytical and critical thinking is necessary

Over three million of our young people took the university entrance exam this weekend. The dreams are big. Some want to be doctors, some engineers, some software developers, and perhaps some, following the latest trends, want to study space sciences and set out to explore space. Some are chasing their own dreams, while others are chasing the dreams that others have built for them.

The university entrance exam is a process of excitement that begins the moment a child is born into a family. From the very first day, a project is created for every baby, and decisions are made. Which nursery they will attend, then which primary school, which high school—a great struggle begins for the family, both financially and emotionally. Unfortunately, the child is the victim of this struggle process. From the moment they start nursery, every moment of their life is under surveillance. What they eat and drink, how much they sleep, how active they are in the classroom, what answers they give to which of the teacher's questions, which families the children they befriend at school come from, who wears what, where they live, who they are related to, etc.—a whole host of questions are on the parents' agenda. Technological possibilities have also brought great convenience to this entire surveillance and control process. Every moment of the child is monitored with smartphones. At the end of every day, the surveillance report is put on the table, and the entire day is accounted for. The child also knows that they have to give an account at the end of every day and learns to develop their own defense strategy accordingly.

Teachers also get more than their fair share of this surveillance and control. Especially if they are in a private school, woe betide them. Every move the teacher makes is assigned a monetary value and processed accordingly. Nowadays, parents have largely become the ones who decide what the teacher will teach in class and how they will treat the student. The reason for this tight control is to ensure that neither the teacher nor the student deviates from the goal during the university exam preparation process and that the process is executed with millimeter precision.

The result is three million people knocking on the doors of universities. They have arrived here by solving multiple-choice test questions since primary school. Now they are in the finals. If they can get the score they want, they will enter a department they targeted or that their families targeted for them. If they cannot, the situation is a disaster. Because they only focused on the goal. Making a Plan B did not even cross the minds of most of them. In fact, it is not even clear how correct the goal they focused on is. I am not sure if they even know exactly what they want or what kind of life they have planned for themselves. I observe this uncertainty in my conversations with university candidates. I see that most of them do not have any plans or goals regarding life. Isn't it strange that children living in big cities, even though each one is a family project, have no goals and are in a strange state of losing their direction?

I think that is the problem. Every child is being prepared for life as a project by the family they are born into. In the project created, the child's wishes, talents, tastes, inclinations, and orientations are not taken into account. This is why most of the young people I meet during the preference period cannot decide which department they want to enter, even if they have received good scores. This is why, during university preference periods, it is not the candidates themselves, but the parents who go around visiting universities and trying to decide which department their child will study in. Most of the time, the young person does not even care which department they will enter, what they will study, or what profession they will practice. Moreover, they do not even care about how they want to live their own life. This is truly dire. They do not even care about their lives and how they will live them. And we expect these children to be successful and do great things. But they haven't even learned how to dream. We imposed multiple-choice test questions on them and gave them no opportunity to dream. We even gave them the template for choosing their friends. They couldn't even be free there. At least we should have let them imagine their own unknowns, even if only as much as in fairy tales, let them go on small adventures. Let them experience small fears, encounter small obstacles, and learn to fight and cope. Let them accumulate their own experiences in the struggle of life.

Why are we doing this to our children? This life is theirs; let's allow them to live it as they wish. Of course, let's help them, let's guide them in line with their talents, inclinations, and wishes, but let's not determine their goals. Let's not decide which profession they want to pursue. Let's not constantly hold it over their heads just because we pay for their education. They were born into this life because we wanted them to, but let's also give them the right to plan and shape their own lives.

On the other hand, the education system also needs to be reviewed. There are curriculum debates on the agenda. Aside from the political and ideological discussion of the matter, I believe the real regulation that needs to be made in the curriculum is the introduction of a system that will allow for the development of analytical thinking and improve the individual's enthusiasm and skill for production.

Social development and national progress are only possible through the upbringing of individuals who can question, have developed analytical thinking skills, can criticize, and are focused on production. As an individual, when a person can dream, set goals, design, and produce, they enjoy life and experience the pleasure of the joy of living.