The assessment of students' academic achievement via international monitoring studies provides important insights to participating countries. Besides the cognitive performance of students, educational equity is one of the emphasized topics within the scope of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. Results regarding educational equity are quite important in Turkey because academic achievement differences among school types are relatively high in Turkey. Although a wide range of studies is conducted to examine the performance differences between school types in Turkey, it is observed that most studies focus on mean scores of school types. The aim of this study is to examine the change in student ratios at a basic-and advanced level of proficiency by school types in PISA applications between 2003 and 2018. Results show that approximately all students in science high schools and social sciences high schools have basic proficiency in all literacy fields and throughout PISA 2003 and PISA 2018. The ratio of students with basic proficiency in Anatolian high schools and Anatolian imam hatip high schools tends to be increased. However, the ratio of students with advance proficiency seems to be low in all school types in Turkey except science high schools. Steps to decrease the achievement differences between school types in Turkey within the scope of findings are suggested.

As a type of skills mismatch, horizontal skills mismatch (HM) is a particularly important problem for vocational education and training (VET) in Turkey because the majority of VET graduates work in a different field than the one in which they were educated. This study aims to determine the reasons why some VET graduates in Turkey work in fields other than their original field of study. For this purpose, we have employed a sequential mixed-model research design, first conducting face-to-face interviews with 20 VET graduates and then applying a questionnaire to VET graduates that elicited 4,863 responses. The study uses descriptive analysis for the qualitative data from the interviews and an open-ended item from the questionnaire. The qualitative results show the most common reasons for VET graduates' employment out of their field of study to include being unable to find a job in their field of study, low wages, lack of necessary vocational skills, lack of experience, and working conditions. Quantitative results show VET graduates to want to be employed in their field of study and to make significant efforts in finding jobs that match their field. We have concluded HM to be a common problem and all the factors influencing VET graduates' out-of-field employment to be related to a weak relationship between VET and the Turkish labor market.

This study analyses the results of the 'Four-Skill Test in Turkish Language' (FSTTL) project conducted by the Ministry of National Education to assess the language skills of students as a pilot project and investigates the effects of various variables on language skills. Relationships between language scores and school type, gender, preschool participation, parents' level of education, and course grades are investigated in this descriptive study. The sample is consisted of 1932 students in seventh grade who participated in the pilot study. Test battery, consisted of reading, listening, writing, and speaking subtests, is used to assess the language skills of students within the scope of the FSTTL. Findings show that students in imam-hatip middle schools and middle schools performed at a similar level in all subtests. Female students performed significantly higher than male students in all subtests. Students participated in pre-school education performed significantly higher than those who did not participate in reading, writing, and listening subtests. Findings also show that the increase in parents' level of education leads to an increase in students' subtest scores. The effect of parents' level of education on subtest scores is comparatively higher than the effects of other factors in focus. Significant correlations have been obtained between the four-skill scores and student's Turkish course, social sciences, mathematics, and science course grades. It is suggested that FSTTL must be developed based on the experiences of the pilot project as a standardized test in accordance with the international standards and actively used to improve educational processes.