The Comparison of Turkish and Chinese Primary Math Teacher Education Programs

Teacher admission Teacher appointment Mathematics teaching Teacher education The aim of this study is to compare Turkey and China in terms of admission to primary math teacher education programs, the content of primary math teacher training programs and appointment to teaching post. Within the scope of this aim, document analysis method was used in the study. As data sources the websites of Ministry of Education, OECD, National Center on Education and Economy and articles on primary Mathematics teacher education systems and teacher education systems in general were used. The documents were examined in terms of conditions of admission to teacher education programs, the content of curriculum and the appointment to teaching post in Turkey and China. While choosing the countries, 2018 PISA Math results of China and Turkey were considered. According to the findings of the study it was concluded that although Turkey and China have some similarities in terms of conditions of admission to teacher education programs, the content of curriculum and the appointment to teaching post, there are also big differences between two countries. Accordingly, some suggestions are proposed especially for the Turkish teacher education system. Some of the suggestions are increasing the hours of practicum, having an interview before they are accepted to education programs, having an interview and a written exam in every five years after they are appointed to a teaching post. Article Info: Received Accepted Published : 02-04-2021 : 23-05-2021 : 17-06-2021

112 of mathematics (Baykul, 2014). In this regard, it can be said that in Turkey those skills are tried to be fostered through mathematics curriculum from the first grade of primary to the fourth grade of high school. In other words, when the mathematics curriculum is considered, it is seen that those skills are within the scope of the mathematics course objectives across different grades. Although teaching mathematics has great importance and steps are taken to make math education better, various international reports, based on mathematics achievement of students in Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries show that Turkey's rank is quite low (Ministry of Education [MoNE], 2003[MoNE], , 2005[MoNE], , 2010a[MoNE], , 2010b[MoNE], , 2011[MoNE], , 2014[MoNE], , 2015[MoNE], , 2016[MoNE], , 2017. Accordingly, it can be said that the education system, curriculum, family, teachers, teacher education programs, etc. are among the sources of student success (Malaty, 2006;Sahlberg, 2010;Simola, 2005). When the importance of teachers in students' success is considered, it can be said that teachers have important roles to enable students to have the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes and to be trained in the field of math as well. According to Bursalıoğlu (1994) teachers are the cornerstones of schools as a social system. In this context, teachers have a lot of responsibilities. To fulfill their responsibilities such factors as teachers' lifestyles, habits, and their psychological state have great importance. Besides, these characteristics of teachers have a great influence on students (Erdem, Gezer, & Çokadar, 2005).
In this respect it can be also stated that education of teachers has a great role on students' success as well. Despite education systems show variance from country to country and society to society, their common point is to identify the qualities of teachers. From this point of view, countries need to structure their teacher education and selection processes very well to have qualified teachers. All around the world, countries put great emphasis on the teacher education systems. Especially, in Finland being a teacher is considered to be a respectful profession (Ekinci & Öter, 2010). Similarly, in Holland and Japan in order to be a teacher, people need to have high qualifications (Ergun & Ersoy, 2014;Uçar & Uçar, 2004). According to Şişman (2001) although respectability of being a teacher varies from culture to culture, it is thought to be a sacred profession in all cultures. In Turkey, teaching which was considered to be high respectful profession in the early years of the Republic, started to lose its respectability as the number of teachers increased. Moreover, today, it is seen as a high-status profession for the people with low income; however, it is seen low-status profession for the people with high income (Özoğlu, 2010).
According to Külekçi and Bulut (2010), although there are differences between teacher education systems in societies, the conditions of admission to education faculties, the content of the education programs and the evaluation studies done afterwards should be examined. When the related literature is reviewed, it is seen that there a number of studies related to teacher education and selection system in different countries and there are also different studies related to the comparison of countries in terms of their teacher education and selection systems (Aras & Sözen, 2012;Arslan & Özpınar, 2008;Atanur Başkan, Aydın, & Madden, 2006;Ergun & Avcı, 2013;Sahlberg, 2010;Saylan, 2013). However, there is only one study about comparing primary math teacher education system in Turkey with the system of a country which is very successful at math in international exams (Erbilgin & Boz, 2013). In this respect, the aim of this study is to compare Turkey and China in terms of admission to primary math teacher education programs, the content of primary math teacher education programs, and appointment to a teaching post.
The development of mathematics skills is a phenomenon that should be prioritized by every country, and international exams, in this sense, are important for countries for countries to see their own situation. When 2018 PISA results are considered, China is on the top of the list (MoNE, 2019). On the other hand, Turkey is at the bottom of the list. Also, based on the overall PISA exam results, it can be said that Turkey's system of admitting candidates to teacher education programs and appointment to a teaching post have had some problems up to now. That the admission to teacher education program which is based on a central exam that does not evaluate teacher candidate's subject field is considered as a big problem for the teaching profession (Özoğlu, 2010). Moreover, despite implementing different teacher education models, the teacher education system is still not as qualified as expected (Aykaç & Şahin, 2018). In this respect, in this study the following questions are answered: 1. What are the similarities/differences between China and Turkey in terms of admission to primary math teacher education programs? 2. What are the similarities/differences between China and Turkey in terms of primary math teacher education program content? 3. What are the similarities/differences between China and Turkey in terms of appointment to a teaching post?
In the light of these questions, to compare China and Turkey in terms of admission to primary mathematics teacher education programs, primary mathematics teacher education program content, and appointment to a teaching post has great importance in terms of improving the educational systems for qualified teachers by revealing their similarities and differences. It is thought that revealing similarities and differences can be a guide for countries where teacher education programs are similar to that of Turkey.

Method
Document analysis method was used in the study. Document analysis is the analysis of written documents about the phenomenon to be investigated (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018). In this research study, primary mathematics teacher education programs in China and Turkey were examined according to admission to primary math teacher education programs, primary math teacher education program content, and appointment to teaching post. While choosing the countries, 2018 PISA math results of China and Turkey were considered. According to PISA 2018 mathematics results China is on the top of the list. On the other hand, Turkey is at the bottom of the list (MoNE, 2019).
For document analysis the steps which were proposed by Forster (1995) were followed and they are presented in Table 1. Those are accessing the documents, checking the originality, understanding the documents, analysis, and using the data (cited in Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018). • Conditions for admission to primary math teacher education programs • Courses being compulsory or elective and their credits for content of primary math teacher education programs • Conditions for appointment to primary math teacher education post 5. Using the data • Nobody will be harmed or will benefit from the use of documents • Correct interpretation of documents As it is seen in Table 1, first of all, an answer was sought for the question of whether there is a real need for documents in the research and if necessary, what kind of documents are needed. In this respect, as data sources the websites of Ministry of Turkish Education, OECD, National Center on Education and Economy and articles on primary Mathematics teacher education systems and teacher education systems in general were used. In terms of originality of documents, whether the data covered by the documents are related to the research, whether access to primary sources is provided, by whom they developed it etc. have been taken into account. Then, in terms of understanding and analyzing the data, the documents were analyzed comparatively by taking into account the questions to be answered within a certain system. In the analysis of the data, firstly the categories were determined. Those categories are admission to primary math teacher education programs, content of primary math teacher education programs, and appointment to primary math teacher education post. Then, the analysis unit was determined. Conditions were taken into consideration for admission to primary math teacher education programs. For the content of primary math teacher education programs, whether the courses are compulsory or elective were also taken into consideration. Lastly, the conditions to be appointed a to primary math teacher education post were taken into consideration. In order to provide reliability, data were checked by two researchers. Accordingly, the reliability was calculated according to Miles and Huberman formula (Miles & Huberman, 1994) and it was found .87. In terms of using the data, it has been important that nobody has been harmed or benefited from using the documents and that they are interpreted correctly. In the light of all the steps, teacher education systems in terms of admission to primary math teacher education programs, content of the teacher education programs and appointment to a teaching post in China and Turkey were examined.

Findings Related to Admission to Primary Math Teacher Education Programs in Turkey and China
Findings gathered from conditions of admission to primary math teacher education programs in Turkey and China are presented in Table 2. As it is seen in Table 2, first students need to graduate from high school and then, they need to take a central exam in order to be a primary math teacher in Turkey. On the other hand, although China has a local system, in order to be admitted to a teacher education program, every student needs to graduate from high school and then they need to take a national exam. To be a primary mathematics teacher, conditions show variance according to the parts of China.

Findings Related to Content of Teacher Education Programs
Findings related to content of primary math teacher education programs in Turkey and China are presented Table 3. According to Table 3, in terms of the curriculum structure of primary Mathematics teacher education program, in Turkey there are 50 compulsory courses and 16 elective courses in the curriculum published in 2018. Both compulsory and elective course are divided into major courses, education courses and general culture courses. Basis of math 1, 2, history of math, analysis 1, 2, abstract math and etc. are the major courses. Educational psychology, educational philosophy, teaching technologies, and etc. are the education courses. Moreover, information technologies, foreign language 1, 2, Turkish, and etc. are the general culture courses. There is also a practicum dimension within the scope of primary mathematics teacher education program. Students are supposed to take those courses to be a teacher at primary level. On the other hand, the curriculum in China is divided into three parts as compulsory courses electives, general culture courses, major courses, education courses, and practicum (Chai, 2001;Chen, 2004). Moreover, compulsory courses are classified as general course, major course, education, and practice course. Elective courses are classified as major elective and general elective courses. English, sports, politics, law, computer, and etc. are compulsory general courses; a number of math course are compulsory major courses; education and pedagogy, psychology, educational technology, and etc. are education courses. For the elective courses school math, using IT for teaching, math, history, and etc. are the major elective courses; art, music and etc. are the general elective courses.
In terms of the credits of the courses in Turkey within the scope of compulsory courses, major courses have 57 credits, education courses have 38 credits, general culture course has 19 credits; as for elective courses, major elective courses have 12 and educational elective courses have 12, and general culture electives have 8 credits. Besides in China, within the scope of compulsory courses general course has 45 credits, major course has 88 credits, education course has 11 credits; as for elective courses major elective course has 21 credits, and general elective course has 10 credits.
Moreover, in Turkey, students need to be admitted to a faculty of education in order to be a primary math teacher. However, in Shanghai, they need to be admitted to a college (National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education [NCEE], 2015). That is, in Turkey, students need to complete 4-year BA education; on the other hand, in China there are three different teacher education programs to be a teacher at primary or secondary school. These are Junior College, Undergraduate, and Masters. To become a teacher at primary school or junior, students take the courses at Junior College program.
Moreover, in Hong Kong, there are four big institutions serving for teacher education. These institutions present teacher education programs specialized in the field of math and science (Leung, et al., 2015; cited in Barış & Hasan, 2019).
Moreover, the primary math curriculum of Turkey and China has practicum dimensions. In Turkey, this course has 10 credits; however, in China it has 6 credits. Also, In China experimental teaching, teaching at primary schools under observation, conducting educational surveys, and probation are within the scope of teaching practice (Drewitz, 2009). Moreover, in Turkey, the practicum course is offered in the 4th year; it is also offered in the 4th year in China.

Findings Related to Appointment to a Teaching Post
In terms of appointment to a teaching post, in Turkey, students need to take a test called Public Personnel Selection Examination (KPSS). This is a two-staged test. In the first stage, students are supposed to answer multiple choice questions related to basic courses such as Turkish, Math, History, and etc. In the second stage, students are expected to answer questions related to subject matter knowledge. Based on the scores of the KPSS, people are called for interview (Kabaran & Görgen, 2016). On the other hand, in China, there is also a national exam; however, after taking the national exam the appointment to a teaching post shows variance from state to state. For example, in Hong Kong the teachers should apply to Bureau of Education in order to work at a school (NCEE, 2015).

Discussion, Conclusion and Implications
In this research study, Turkish and Chinese primary math teacher education programs were investigated according to their criteria for admission to teacher education programs, the content of the teacher education programs, and appointment to a teaching post. To start with, in Turkey, education faculties are responsible for teacher training. In order to be a primary math teacher, students are supposed to be high school graduates and they need to take the university entrance exam. That is, students in Turkey must take a two staged university entrance exam after they completed their high school education. This exam is held by the Center for Evaluation, Selection, and Placement (ÖSYM). All high school students are supposed to take the first stage which is a basic proficiency test. The students who want to be teachers are supposed to take the second stage of the exam which is called Higher Education Institutions Exam (Council of Higher Education [YÖK], 2018). This exam is the only criteria to be accepted to the programs in faculty of education in each university. However, in China, the conditions of being a primary math teacher shows difference according to each state. The common condition in all states is that there is a national exam which each student needs to take. Moreover, students need to graduate from high school successfully. Except these conditions, educational institutions can conduct their own exams. When both countries conditions are considered, it can be said that there are similarities between the conditions; however, for example, in Hong Kong, in order to be admitted to a teacher education program, students are supposed to take different exams which are practical in different subjects. Besides they need to have an interview to evaluate both their English and Chinese fluency and also their ability of teaching technique. On the other hand, in Shanghai, students need to graduate from high school successfully and take some exams as well. Their language skills are also tested. Moreover, Shanghai students need to attend an interview (Orakçı, 2015). This helps choose students who are more suitable for teaching to be enrolled in teacher education programs. The study conducted by Delibaş (2007) revealed that in Turkey, selection of teacher candidates is a narrow-scoped process compared to England, German, and Finland biology teacher education programs. It is further suggested that the teacher candidates should be interviewed and take psychiatric tests and attitude scales before they are admitted to a faculty of education. Contrary to Delibaş (2007), Erarslan (2009) stated that as the number of students who take university entrance exam is high in Turkey, it is not practical to implement interviews or such kind of techniques.
Another important point for this study is the structure of primary math programs. Both in Turkey and in China, there are education courses, major courses, and general courses. However, their credits differ from each other. The credits of the major courses in China (N = 88) are higher than the credits of them in Turkey (N = 57). For education courses, the credits in Turkey are higher (N = 38) than in China (N = 11). As for, general courses in China the credits are higher (N = 45) than in Turkey (N = 19). As for elective courses in Turkey (N = 12) the number of credits for major elective courses are less than in China (N = 21). On the other hand, the credits of education electives in Turkey (N = 12) are higher than in China (N = 10). Also, different from China, in Turkey there are general elective courses that have 8 credits. Considering the differences between the credits of two countries, it can be said that the focus in the program is more on major courses and general courses contrary to Turkey. However, in Turkey the focus is more on education courses. This difference might depend on the conditions of admission to teacher education programs. That is, in China, before students are admitted to the teacher education programs, their characteristics are also evaluated during the interviews. This means that, to what extent they are suitable for the job is evaluated -which is related to education knowledge. However, in some studies, it was found out that the most necessary knowledge for a candidate teacher is pedagogical knowledge (Even, 1993;Hill Ball, & Schilling, 2008). Moreover, in a study about math programs, it was found that the number of pedagogical courses is less (Erbilgin & Boz, 2013). Also, in a different study about the math teacher education program in Finland, it is suggested that the courses about how math is thought should be increased (Malaty, 2008).
Practicum courses are also a crucial part for all teacher education programs. When Turkey and China are compared in terms of practicum credits, it is seen that in Turkey (N = 10), its credits are more than in China (N = 6). Considering the practicum courses in both countries it can be said that the credits spared for this course are not enough. It is important for teachers to implement what they learn into the classroom environment. Hence, the more time spared for the practicum, the more chance the teacher candidates have practice their teaching skills. Moreover, in both countries, teacher candidates take this course only in their last year. However, the study of Erarslan (2009) suggested that courses like practicum should be across different years in the undergraduate education. This can be seen as a disadvantage for both countries.
The appointment to a teaching position in Turkey and China also differs. The procedures to be appointed to a teaching post are the same in all parts of Turkey. However, in China, they differ from state to state but all teacher candidates need to take a national exam. KPSS exam is the first criteria in Turkey. To be a primary math teacher candidate, he/she is supposed to get the required score from the exam and they take an interview. The candidates called for the interview need to get 60 points to be appointed to a teaching position. In China, there is a national exam; however, the procedures also show variance state to state. There is a separate exam for pre-school, primary, secondary, and vocational schools (OECD, 2016). However, based on the state, they also need to have other qualifications to be appointed to a position. For example, in Hong Kong, the teachers should apply to Bureau of Education in order to work at a school (NCEE, 2015). These teachers have teaching qualification at the end of teacher education program. Moreover, permitted teachers are the ones who meet the minimum education requirements but do not have formal education become teachers. When the permitted teachers complete their in-service training, they become registered teachers (NCEE, 2015). Moreover, in China, there is a renewal process of teachers' qualification certificate. Every primary math teacher as other primary and secondary school teachers should re-register for qualification certificate in every five years (OECD, 2016). Otherwise, the teacher cannot maintain the teaching position. Considering the differences, it can be said that the content of national exam in China show variance according to the level that the teacher teaches. However, in Turkey all teacher candidates who teach different levels take the same exam.
To sum up, it was concluded that Chinese system is prominent in terms of admission to an education faculty in order to be a primary math teacher. It can be said that being fluent in English and Chinese as criterion to be accepted to a faculty of education is a strength of Chinese system. As communication skills are really important, in teaching people who are good at communication should choose this profession. Moreover, being fluent in English helps teacher candidates to be a math teacher all around the world easily as English is the common language in most of the countries. Moreover, as the credits of major courses are less in Turkey, and the focus is on major courses in China, the teacher candidates are more equipped with their subject field. Therefore, it can be said that they are more qualified and knowledgeable and this can also be seen as a prominent part of the Chinese system. Moreover, the content of the exam shows difference based on the grade that a teacher teaches. So, it is better to have more qualified teachers as they are evaluated according to their level of teaching. Also, the renewal process in China can be evaluated as lifelong learning. That is, teachers should always improve themselves to maintain in their positions. However, in Turkey after teachers are appointed to a school, there is nothing to force them to improve themselves. To sum up, although there are some similarities between Turkey and China, they show great difference especially in terms of appointment to a teaching position and admission to a teacher education institution. It can be said that the differences which has significant advantages for a more qualified system in China can be taken as model in Turkey.
This study is limited to the comparison of Turkish and Chinese primary math teaching programs in terms of admission to a teacher education institution, appointment to a teaching post, and content of primary math teaching programs. Moreover, it is also limited to the websites of Ministry of Turkish Education, OECD, National Center on Education and Economy and articles on primary Mathematics teacher education systems and teacher education systems in general. In the light of findings of this study, some suggestions were proposed. Firstly, as an admission criterion to a teacher education institution, interviews can be made with the students besides the national exam in Turkey. This way, students who are more suitable for the teaching profession can be accepted. Moreover, the hours of practicum courses can be increased and offered not only during the 4th year but also across different years in the program so that the students can have a chance to practice their profession more before they graduate. Also, the content of the KPSS exam can differ according to the level at which the teacher candidates teach. This way, the scores of the students can be more reliable and they can be appointed to a teaching position. Furthermore, there can be a renewal process of teachers' qualification certificates in Turkey as well by using written exams and interviews. Moreover, in order to express themselves in international context and work in abroad, having a high level of English proficiency can be advantageous for teacher candidates. Accordingly, the qualifications of primary math teachers can always be improved, and this can also increase the success of the students.