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On 6 February 2023, two large earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.6 and 7.7 hit central and southern Türkiye and northern Syria resulting in widespread damage and fatalities in the region and leaving 3.3 million displaced. This note – prepared for a workshop to support the affected city of Gaziantep in March 2023 - provides an overview of the affected regions, and key issues and recommendations to support the recovery, based on international experience. It highlights that a plan should be made to support displaced residents for an extended period, identify high-risk families, train the workforce needed for the reconstruction effort, strengthen governance processes to protect recovery funds, coordinate reconstruction efforts across levels of government and with international donors, and engage communities in ambitious plans to improve infrastructure going forward.

This Digital Government Review of Türkiye explores how the Government of Türkiye can use digital technology and data to help the public sector become more responsive, resilient and proactive. It evaluates the efforts made so far by Türkiye in achieving digital government maturity by looking at governance, institutional capacities, digital skills, public service design and delivery, enabling building blocks and the strategic management and use of data. The review provides policy recommendations intended to help the Government of Türkiye fully benefit from digital technologies and data to realise the potential of the digital age in transforming the public sector and the services provided to the public.

This report provides an overview of educational progress in Türkiye in the last two decades and reviews education policies which were developed and implemented during the same period. It considers a selection of policies operating from the levels of learners and institutions to system-level policies that are analysed through the lenses of comparative international data and OECD analysis of policies, programmes, and interventions that aim to support better outcomes and greater equity across national education systems. Conducted as a desk-based analysis, this report draws from the knowledge base of the OECD on education policy in Türkiye, national and international sources, and responses from the Ministry of National Education to a survey conducted for this report.

Schools are perfect hubs for social and emotional learning, but are they ready for this task? To address this question, this Spotlight reports previously unpublished findings from the OECD’s Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) and discusses their implications for education policy and practice. Both an active promotion in schools and extensive learning opportunities for teachers on relevant topics provide a fertile ground for an effective social and emotional education. They boost teachers’ self-efficacy and use of active learning pedagogies, as well as quality relationships at school. The Spotlight also points to important differences for teachers of 10- vs. 15-year-old students that can explain higher skills at a younger age. Younger students benefit more often from key elements of an effective social and emotional education in school, i.e. the evaluation of their social and emotional skills and teachers teaming up with parents to reinforce skill promotion. Teachers of 10-year-olds are also more intensively trained and requested to promote social and emotional learning in their work.

Alongside a fast recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, macroeconomic policies and high commodity prices have contributed to surging inflation, growing external imbalances and implicit liabilities. These vulnerabilities reduce the economy’s resilience to shocks. Anchoring inflation expectations remains a key challenge going forward. Making the regulatory framework more predictable and flexible would help to strengthen economic resilience. Strict regulations limit the entry of new firms, shielding incumbents from internal and external competition. Ensuring a rules-based, level-playing field for firms requires enforcing rules without exemptions. More flexible labour markets would create more high-quality formal jobs but should be accompanied by a comprehensive reform programme that shifts job loss protection to a broader-based unemployment insurance scheme and well-designed activation policies. Ramping up efforts to increase female employment is key to address high rates of non-participation of women. Equipping young people with relevant skills would allow to make the most of the demographic dividend while also addressing rising skill mismatches. SPECIAL FEATURE: LABOUR MARKET, EDUCATION AND SKILLS

In 2021, an OECD team undertook analysis of Republic of Türkiye’s data from two international assessments – the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The analysis aimed to understand how student performance in Türkiye has evolved over time and whether factors related to student background – such as gender or socio-economic background – are associated with performance. This policy perspective uses the findings from the PISA and TIMSS analysis to identify policy options to help Türkiye to raise performance and improve equity. This policy perspective provides suggestions across five policy areas for Türkiye to create a stronger policy focus on overcoming obstacles for more equal opportunities for students.