Curriculum in the Claws of Autonomy Against Centralism in Turkey: Issues and Suggestions

Although the curriculum is often renewed in Turkey, researches show that teachers cannot adhere to curriculum, but why we still design a program with a highly centralized understanding is worth discussing. T he aim of this study is to identify the relationship between curriculum control, teacher autonomy and curriculum adaptation and to develop suggestions for the adoption of the curriculum in Turkey by the teachers and the effective implementation-adaptation of these. When the relevant international and national studies is evaluated together, success-oriented curriculum have focused on national exams, in which teachers are expected to fully implement the programs, their autonomy is highly limited, and as a result, how and why the curriculum are adapted fade into background. In the study, some suggestions are made to prevent the frequent renewed curriculum left on paper or implicit adaptations by taking into account the historical, political and socio-cultural considerations of the evidence of these relations in Turkey