In this study, a historical and international analysis of early childhood education in
Turkey is made. More specifically, we explore the trend in pre-school enrolment,
compare Turkey’s enrolment rate with other countries, study whether access to
pre-school is related to social class and gender, and investigate the impact of
pre-school attendance on later academic performance. We use data from the
PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2012 study and World
Bank EdStats. The results indicate that Turkey’s pre-school enrolment has
strongly increased over the years. However, compared with other (newly)
industrialised countries, Turkey has a very low pre-school enrolment rate.
Regression analyses revealed that pupils from wealthy families are much more
likely to attend pre-school than pupils from poor families, while no difference
was found between girls and boys. Importantly, pre-school attendance was
related to higher academic achievement, even though pupils from wealthy
families benefited more than middle-class and poor pupils.