ÖSS: Are three hours enough to determine one’s whole life?




As another school year comes to a close students planning on pursuing a higher education must take the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS) a three-hour 15-minute test to be administered today that determines what university a student will be allowed to attend.


"More than 95 percent of my efforts went into studying for the ÖSS during my last year in high school. I spent most of my life at a prep school studying for the test this year" says Gizem Bektaş who will take the ÖSS today. Bektaş is one of the 1.53 million students taking the ÖSS this year a test that will determine the course of the rest of their lives.
Emre Budak is in a similar predicament. "The only thing you think about when you come home in the evening is studying for the ÖSS. You do not have the luxury of spending time with your parents." Bektaş and Budak's stories are quite typical.
This year 1.53 million students will take the ÖSS a drop from last year's 1.77 million. 2007 saw 733000 high school graduates a figure that will drop to 222000 this year due to a change in the law requiring four years of high school attendance rather than three. The fact that the test determines the students' lives in just three hours and 15 minutes puts much pressure and stress on students. Education Personnel Union (Eğitim-Sen) General Manager Zübeyde Kılıç Öztürk spoke with Sunday's Zaman and said that as educators they cannot accept the ÖSS being such a determining factor in the lives of students. "I do not believe a test that lasts for three hours and 15 minutes can test 11 years of education and a student's knowledge. How fair is it to decide one's future with only one exam?"
Öztürk said the ÖSS leaves students with psychological trauma and added: "I personally observe this with my own students. Stress stemming from the ÖSS starts very early sometimes even in elementary school. Some students become nauseous during the exam for this reason and some of them forget about the easiest of topics during the exam due to this stress."
Turgay Oğur a representative from the Young Civilians -- a nongovernmental organization known for its use of sarcasm in protests -- says no one is satisfied with the ÖSS but everyone remains silent because there is no better alternative at the moment.
Students spend months preparing
Bektaş 18 will take the ÖSS for the first time this year. She graduated from Adnan Menderes Anatolian High School in İstanbul’s Bakırköy district and took an ÖSS preparatory course a two-year endeavor. Bektaş said she spent years of her life for the three-hour 15-minute ÖSS.
In addition to her regular high school courses Bektaş attended an ÖSS prep course on the weekends. “During my last year I spent more time studying for the ÖSS than I spent in school.”
Budak concurs. “You do not have the luxury to spend time with your parents. But I have to do this because failing this exam means I will not be able to afford my life in the future. So I have to sacrifice a lot of things from my current life for my future.”
Third-time ÖSS taker Alparslan Varal says: “I studied for the test for three years while in high school and another five years at an ÖSS prep school. I have tried to pass the ÖSS three times so far but even if I fail again this year I will not give up. This year I feel I have more of a chance as less people will take the exam and universities have increased their quotas.”
He also says: “I have been taking ÖSS preparation lessons since I was a freshman in high school and I was not aware of the ÖSS’s importance until the last three months before I took my first ÖSS in 2006. I will try a few more times because I have to graduate from a university to find a good job. I haven’t had the chance to learn a trade as I was a student so the only way I can find a good job is by graduating from a university.”
Students preparing for the ÖSS have to sacrifice their free time to study more. Bektaş said: “I delayed all of my plans and only made plans for after the ÖSS. There is no time for fun before the exam on June 15.” Bektaş plans to go on vacation during the summer. “Since my sophomore year in high school I have been going to school on weekdays and to the ÖSS prep course on the weekends. I did not even have time to talk with my family during dinner as it was a ‘waste of time’ for me.”
Criticism not too far off
The main criticism directed at the ÖSS is that it is a general exam and not one that is specialized for various majors offered at universities. Most students do not know what they will major in before taking the ÖSS because they choose their majors according to how they score on the ÖSS. This means they do not have the chance to prepare themselves for their future professions.
Budak says he wants to go to law school and adds: “I want to be a lawyer. The ÖSS however does not cover material related to law school so it does not assess my ability to study law nor my knowledge of the law.”
Bektaş says most of her friends are not sure which majors they will pursue at university. “I want to go to the Cerrahpaşa Medical School and I want to be a pediatrician; however 70 percent of our friends have not yet decided what they’ll pursue as their career. They don’t know which university or department they will end up in.”
Eğitim-Sen General Manager Öztürk believes having such a comprehensive test is not beneficial and that the education system should at least not be reduced to one single exam. Another problem the students have according to Öztürk is that they have no idea what their future profession will be until they are 17 years old. “This is too late for some to decide about their job.”
Young Civilians representative Oğur says the ÖSS is not an exam that assesses one’s knowledge but his or her resistance to long study hours sleeplessness and stress. “Only those who are resistant to stress can succeed on this exam. Those who can manage this are the students studying at ÖSS prep centers. For this reason we cannot talk about equal opportunity among ÖSS participants.”
Oğur also criticized high school education in general saying the insufficient career planning opportunities for students need to be rectified. “The ÖSS is a hope for students who live in small towns and on the outskirts of big cities. They think they will be richer after graduating from an engineering department a medical school a law school.”
Another aspect of the ÖSS that Oğur criticizes is the fact that the students decide on their majors and profession not because they are interested in the topic or are skilled in a particular subject but because they have received a particular score on the ÖSS. “We have a system where it is not rare to hear students say ‘I have always wanted to study history but I decided on international relations because I did not want to throw away my high ÖSS grade’.”
The examination will be held in all provinces and districts of Turaaa as well as Nicosia the capital of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC).
The exam comprises eight sections with 30 multiple choice questions each in physics math geography history literature and biology.
Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) President Ünal Yarımağan said on June 9 that students taking the ÖSS this year are luckier than in previous years as not as many students will graduate this year from most of the country’s high schools because of a recent law that increased high school education from three years to four. “This year the universities’ quota will be 540000; however it may not be possible to meet this quota.”
Security measures
Students taking the exam will be subject to strict security measures. They will not be allowed to bring cell phones walkmans or other similar electronic devices into the exam hall. Some students will not be allowed to take the exam because of their style of dress and women wearing headscarves have been warned on numerous occasions that they will be barred from taking the test.
The ÖSS is not only an exam it has become a lifestyle. Large parts of the country mobilize to prepare the students with newspapers publishing warnings on what to do how to sleep what to eat and what not to eat.
Municipalities also take measures to help the students get to the test centers by providing transportation. They also work on reducing noise around the centers. Question booklets are printed and distributed under heavy security and academics involved in preparing the questions as well as workers who took part in printing the booklets are not allowed to leave the buildings they work at from the moment the exam begins to be put together until the exam finishes in order to prevent any violation of security measures. Interestingly enough the ÖSS was the subject of a Turkish movie titled “Sınav” (Exam) starring Jean-Claude van Damme about a group of students trying to steal exam questions.
The nationwide university entrance exam has been in place since 1974. Although the exam has been renamed several times its purpose has remained the same: to eliminate students. It is for this reason that the ÖSS is not an exam designed to assess achievement but one designed to eliminate a certain number of students because universities have limited capacity and cannot meet the needs of the growing population.
Student selection exams around the world
The ÖSS is not unique to Turaaa. In China for instance students have to take the world’s largest exam the National Higher Education Entrance Examination taken by 9.5 million people competing for a chance to pursue a higher education. The exam is usually taken by students in their last year of secondary school.
Poland’s Matura exam also serves as a university entrance exam. The Matura consists of a written and an oral part and the topics covered vary in accordance with the department in which the student seeks to study.
Not all countries however require an entrance exam for higher education. Finland has a professional counseling system for students with particular focus in the last two years of high school. The students apply directly to universities from February to June and have the opportunity to evaluate the universities.
England on the other hand has a well developed but expensive counseling and guidance system for high school students. University representatives visit high schools often and advertise the universities they represent with the help of catalogues and other brochures.
Countries like Hungary and Portugal look to the students’ performance in their last year of high school as a criterion for their success and universities accept students according to this. In some countries no graduation exams exist but these countries evaluate the students’ overall success throughout their high school education.
2008 ÖSS a greater chance for most candidates

Students taking the exam this year are luckier than those of previous years because of a change to high school requirements. Students now have to attend high school for four years compared to the previous three years. This means almost no students will graduate this year. Another advantage that this year’s ÖSS victims have is that the Higher Education Board (YÖK) has increased the quota of universities by 25 percent a controversial decision that drew criticism from academics as most universities in Turaaa lack the infrastructure to support this quota. According to this 113000 more students will pursue higher education beginning this year and the total number of students entering universities will exceed 500000 in 2008.
Last year 1.77 million students took the ÖSS. This will drop to 1.53 million this year. 2007 saw 733000 high school graduates a figure that will drop to 222000 this year.
Many students take the ÖSS exam multiple times with the hope of improving their score and thereby being offered a greater range of majors to choose from. And some students retake the ÖSS in order to change their majors.