Turkish Education Union's Sharp Reaction to 2026 University Entrance Exam: The Right to Education Should Not Be Sacrificed to Disorder

Crisis in the Assessment System: Question Cancellations and Key Changes Following the announcement of results by Turkey's Assessment, Selection, and Placement Center (ÖSYM) for the 2026 Higher Education Institutions Examination (YKS), a wave of criticism has swept the country's educational landscape. According to official reports, ÖSYM canceled one question in the Turkish Literature and Social Sciences section and changed the answer key for one mathematics question in the Field Proficiency Test (AYT) [4]. These late corrections, made after the exam held on June 20-21, 2026, caused widespread confusion and protests among candidates and civil society organizations.

Structural Critique of Oversight and Transparency In response to these developments, Eğitim Sen issued a statement emphasizing that "the right to education should not be placed under the shadow of unsupervised and non-transparent procedures" [1]. The union believes that such errors in an exam determining the fate of millions of young people are not merely simple "technical mistakes" but indicate structural weaknesses in the design, review, and oversight stages of the questions [2]. Eğitim Sen called on the Ministry of National Education and ÖSYM to transparently investigate the process leading to these errors and identify those responsible for these inconsistencies.

Exam Security or Teacher Surveillance? Another part of the union's protest focused on the government's security approach at exam centers. Criticizing the installation of cameras in teachers' rooms and classrooms under the pretext of exam security, Eğitim Sen stated that the main problem with exam security is not teachers or exam centers, but the lack of independent academic oversight of the central question design process [3]. They emphasized that these measures only destroy the atmosphere of trust in educational environments and have no impact on the quality or integrity of the exam [1].

Necessity of Reforming the Exam-Oriented System At the end of the statement, the Turkish Education Union called for a fundamental change in the student assessment system. Eğitim Sen suggested that the educational system should move away from a competitive, exam-oriented approach toward one that assesses students' scientific talents and capabilities fairly over time [2]. The organization warned that continuing the current trend will deepen educational inequalities and completely destroy public trust in educational institutions [3].