Minister of National Education Tekin announces solution to criticisms of multiple-choice questions: AI-supported

Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin attended the meeting titled 'Targeted Transformation and Innovative Approaches in National Education Infrastructure in the Age of Informatics and Technology' held at a hotel in Sarıyer. Speaking at the meeting, Tekin said, "I want to underline this as well.

There have been very few periods within the Ministry of National Education where decisions were taken with such consensus. Now I want to underline a few things. You have surely seen these figures in many different places, but I am stating them to express what kind of mass or what kind of magnitude we are facing; we currently have 1 million 238 thousand 695 teachers.

In other words, when we think in terms of 86 million, one out of every 80 people is with us. Our colleague working with us. It is a very large figure, approximately 18 million students, and I am not counting other institutions that serve only as schools; I am not talking about private schools and other types of institutions established within our general directorate.

I am not talking about other institutions; when we look at them just as schools, we have 75 thousand schools with legal personality and 761 thousand classrooms. Why did I say this? I said it so that we are aware, or that there is a great awareness, of what a large family we are in and that we are treading carefully with every step we take while implementing our benefits," he said.

"EBA IS ONE OF THE MOST ADVANCED EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN THE WORLD"

Stating that EBA is one of the most advanced education systems in the world, Minister Tekin said, "A project was launched in 2002 during the term of our Prime Minister, Mr. Bülent Ecevit. Teacher friends and administrative friends, people related to education, wrote letters to the ministers who would be in office in the centenary of the Republic. These letters reached us in 2023.

For example, what our teacher friends said at that time regarding technology was, 'I hope one day, in the centenary of the Republic, there will be one computer in each of our schools.' That is the expectation of our teachers in 2002 in this sense.

At the point we have reached today, let alone a computer, we have interactive boards in 65 thousand of our schools. We have brought our children, our youth, and our teachers to a level where they can learn any subject by using interactive boards connected to the internet, with the different explanations of a teacher anywhere in the world or a teacher in any part of Turkey.

EBA is one of the most advanced education systems in the world. It contributes to the education of our students not only in terms of materials but also in terms of educational videos. It is a system that constantly improves and updates itself," he said.

"THERE WILL BE AI-SUPPORTED OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS"

Stating that multiple-choice questions are criticized and that open-ended questions will be asked in exams with artificial intelligence support, Tekin said, "For the first time in Turkey, we have established a ministry support program. In the mechanism we have established, we can instantly pull information from different units of the state and rationalize our decisions.

We have established a department to closely follow what is happening in the international arena regarding artificial intelligence applications in education and to carry out developments within the ministry in this sense. We have a Department of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Applications within our General Directorate of Innovation and Educational Technologies for this entire process.

This is a department that coordinates and tries to develop the artificial intelligence applications in the entire process I mentioned. Thanks to this place, we are doing many things. Everyone says that multiple-choice exams should be abolished as soon as possible, but hesitations arise in all of our minds regarding the objective evaluation of open-ended questions.

Therefore, we are developing a project with TÜBİTAK regarding the evaluation of open-ended questions supported by artificial intelligence. We have many AI-supported projects. Our ministry is the first ministry to create the artificial intelligence policy document in Turkey and the action plan related to it. This is also very important for us," he said.

News Source: İHA