The duration of primary education in Turkey is 8 years and includes the education and training of children in the 6-14 years of age group. The institutions of primary education consist of eigtht-year schools, un-interrupted education is carried out in these schools and the students who graduate are given a primary education diploma. The fact that primary education is compulsory for all male and female citizens and it is free of charge in the State schools is guaranteed in the Constitution, Basic Law for National Education and the Law for Primary Education and Training. Furthermore, besides the State schools, there are also many private primary education schools which provide students educational services in return for a tuition fee.
The objective of primary education is to provide children with the required basic knowledge, ability, behavior and habits for them to become good citizens and to prepare them for life and further education according to their inte-rests and abilities. Furthermore, in the second semester of the final year of primary education the students are informed with guidance services on the subjects of the schools, programs and choice of occupation.
In order to improve the application on primary education and to increase quality, "Project 2000 on Catching The Age in Education" has been put into practice. Within the extent of this project, 21,620 classrooms have been put into service in the last year; over 100,000 students have been provided with the opportunity for boarding study in boarding schools and in the pensioned schools for primary education; foreign language lessons and elective second foreign language lessons have started to be given beginning from the 4th year of primary education; educational mate-rial have been devised, again with a student-oriented understanding, and courses have been opened in order to make teachers literate on computers.