Comparison of Turkish Elementary School Science Curriculum: 2005-2013-2017

Change is an inevitable reality of life. The developments in the world affect the qualities expected from individuals and this reflects on the educational systems. For this reason, the high competitiveness of the countries in the international arena requires that the education systems comply with the requirements of the age. In Turkey, it is seen that the curriculum has been changed in various times since the announcement of the Republic. In 2005, a major change was done and the curriculum was prepared in line with the philosophical and structural approach as well as the the requirements of the age. These programs were updated in 2013 by reviewing the 4 + 4 + 4 education system which was designed in 2012. In 2017, the curriculum has been updated with stakeholder’s feedback in line with the problems faced by previously developed programs and practices. In this context, the aim of the study is to compare the elementary school science curriculums which were prepared based on the constructivist approach in 2005, updated in 2013 and re-revised in 2017, and to reveal their similarities and differences. In the study, the elementary school science curriculums (2005-2013-2017) were compared by investigating in terms of basic philosophy of the curriculum, the general aims of the curriculum, key competences in the curriculum, and the approaches during the teaching situations, the evaluation process, the subject areas, the achievements and the course hours. The research was carried out by document analyzing method of qualitative research methods. As a result of the study, we found out that while there was not much difference between primary school sciences curriculums in 2013 and 2017, there was a great deal of differences between the 2005 curriculum and the 2013 and 2017 curriculum especially in the number of achievements and course hours