Education · Data
Turkey's 2025-2026 school year: 17.7 million students, 1.2 million teachers
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In brief
Turkey's Ministry of National Education (MEB) reported 17,704,308 students enrolled in formal pre-school through secondary education for the 2025-2026 school year, taught by 1,211,799 teachers in 75,012 schools. The figures, released October 1, 2026, also show a rising share of vocational and technical education.
Turkey's Ministry of National Education (MEB) published its annual "National Education Statistics: Formal Education" report for the 2025-2026 school year on October 1, 2026, according to Anadolu Agency (AA) and multiple national outlets including Hürriyet, Karar and Aksiyon. The report covers pre-school, primary, middle and secondary (lise) levels across public, private and open-education institutions.
Headline numbers
According to the MEB data cited by AA and Hürriyet, 17,704,308 students were enrolled in formal education nationwide: 9,089,093 male and 8,615,215 female. Of these, 15,167,794 attended public institutions, 1,485,021 attended private institutions, and 1,051,493 were registered in open education. The total teaching staff reached 1,211,799, of whom 1,067,218 worked in public institutions and 144,581 in private institutions; AA reported the formal-education teacher count specifically at 1,170,320. The country had 75,012 schools (59,914 public, 15,094 private, 4 open-education institutions) and 769,933 classrooms.
Enrollment by education level
| Level | Students |
|---|---|
| Pre-school | 1,739,723 |
| Primary school | 5,408,899 |
| Middle school | 5,307,934 |
| Secondary (lise) | 5,247,752 |
Within secondary education, general high schools enrolled 3,046,666 students, vocational and technical high schools enrolled 1,736,473, and İmam Hatip high schools enrolled 464,613, per Hürriyet and Karar.
Ratios and schooling rates
MEB reported student-to-teacher ratios of 17 in primary school, 13 in middle school and 12 in secondary education, according to Hürriyet and AA. Karar additionally cited student-to-classroom ratios of 19 in primary, 25 in middle school and 21 in secondary education.
AA, Hürriyet and Karar reported the same schooling rates (okullaşma oranı): 84.14% for five-year-olds, 98.46% for ages 6-9, 98.16% for ages 10-13 and 87.09% for ages 14-17, all attributed to MEB.
Vocational education on the rise
The share of vocational and technical programs within formal secondary education rose from 37.56% in the 2024-2025 school year to 39.51% in 2025-2026, according to MEB data reported by Hürriyet, Karar and Aksiyon.
AA and Karar also reported that about 765,728 students received school transportation support (including 150,405 students in special education) and 345,112 students received scholarships, according to the same MEB release.
Sources and possible discrepancies
All four outlets attribute their figures to the Ministry of National Education's own statistical release. No independent agency, such as the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), was cited alongside MEB in the sources reviewed. Headline figures in some outlets round the totals (e.g., "17.7 million," "1.2 million teachers"), while the body text of each article gives the same precise numbers: 17,704,308 students and 1,211,799 teachers.
Questions
- How many students were enrolled in Turkish formal education for 2025-2026?
- According to MEB data reported by Hürriyet, Karar and Aksiyon, 17,704,308 students were enrolled across pre-school, primary, middle and secondary levels.
- How many teachers does Turkey have for the 2025-2026 school year?
- MEB reported 1,211,799 total teachers, with 1,067,218 in public institutions and 144,581 in private institutions, according to Hürriyet and Aksiyon.
- What share of students are in private schools?
- 1,485,021 students were enrolled in private institutions, compared with 15,167,794 in public institutions and 1,051,493 in open education, per the MEB figures cited by Hürriyet and AA.
- Is vocational education growing in Turkey?
- Yes. The vocational and technical share of secondary enrollment rose from 37.56% in 2024-2025 to 39.51% in 2025-2026, according to MEB data reported by Hürriyet, Karar and Aksiyon.
- What is the student-to-teacher ratio in Turkish schools?
- MEB reported ratios of 17 students per teacher in primary school, 13 in middle school and 12 in secondary school for 2025-2026, according to Hürriyet and AA.
How the world is telling it
- TurkishTurkish outlets (Hürriyet, Karar, Aksiyon, Anadolu Agency) frame the release as a routine annual statistical update from the Ministry of National Education, emphasizing the rising enrollment total, the growing vocational-education share, and infrastructure figures such as school and classroom counts, without political commentary.
Sources
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