, citing data collected by Gallup World Poll, Turkey was the country that saw the steepest decline in confidence in the judiciary and satisfaction with the education system among the OECD member countries in the last decade.){kind=link}
Turkey was the country that saw the steepest decline in confidence in the judiciary and satisfaction with the education system among Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries in the last decade, according to an OECD report, citing data collected by Gallup World Poll.
The report, titled Government at a Glance 2021, which focuses on government activities and their results in OECD countries, said confidence in the judiciary reached 57 percent on average across the OECD in 2020, representing a 6 percent increase since 2010. The level of confidence in the judicial system is expressed as the proportion of respondents who answered “yes” to the question of “In this country, do you have confidence in each of the following, or not? How about the judicial system and courts?”
Turkey saw the largest decrease in confidence in the judiciary among OECD member countries, with a 22 percentage points decrease from a confidence level of 60 percent in 2010 to 38 percent in 2020. As the overall confidence in the judiciary increased in OECD members, Turkey stood 19 percent below the average, while the country was 9 percent above the average in 2010.
Turkey disbarred more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors immediately after an abortive military coup in July 2016 over alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement, which it accused of orchestrating the attempted putsch. The movement denies any involvement.
The mass disbarment of members of the judiciary is believed by many to have had a chilling effect on the entire justice system, intimidating the remaining judges and prosecutors into doing the government’s bidding by launching politically motivated investigations into critics.
More than 70 pct of Turks’ not satisfied with the education system
Seventy-three percent of Turks were dissatisfied with the education system in 2020, up from 38 percent in 2010.
Among OECD countries, Turkey had the largest decline in satisfaction with the education system, with a 35 percentage point decline from 2010.
On average, 68 percent of citizens in OECD countries reported being satisfied with the education system in 2020, a 1 percentage point increase since 2010.
Norway (92 percent), Finland (87 percent) and Slovenia (86 percent) had the highest satisfaction levels and Turkey (27 percent) had the lowest, behind Greece (36 percent) and Chile (43 percent).
According to the report, not all students in Turkey had the same opportunities for remote learning during the pandemic. A large proportion of students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds did not have access to a computer at home.
The crackdown on critical thinking in Turkey with an unprecedented witch hunt targeting teachers, academics and other professionals in the education sector has dealt a huge blow to free thought in Turkey, according to a report released by the Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF).
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan jailed some 20,000 instructors and arbitrarily fired 34,185 public school teachers and 5,719 academics including professors from state universities between 2016 and 2018.