Education has become one of the Turkish government’s main playgrounds. Over the past 13 years, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has had five education ministers, with the incumbent, Nabi Avci, presiding over arguably the most chaotic era Turks have ever seen in the education system.

Last year, Avci introduced the Transition from Elementary to Secondary Education (TEOG) system, which involves a centralized nationwide exam and is intended to determine which high schools students attend after 8th grade. In the ensuing confusion, many students found themselves at imam-hatip religious schools — which teach the Quran and train Muslim clergy — usually against their wishes. Even the grandson of Turkey’s Chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva landed in an imam-hatip school, which was not even in Istanbul but in a district outside the city. Outraged parents, whose children were placed in schools dozens of miles away from their homes, launched a campaign called "Hands off my child."

With students and parents still reeling from the TEOG chaos, the government this time turned to the private tutoring halls that prepare students for the country’s numerous centralized exams. It passed a law that required all those institutions to either close down or transform themselves into regular private schools. The move was part of the government’s war on the Gulen movement, which dominated the sector.

The legislation included additional provisions that paved the way for a massive purge in the administrations of public schools. Under the law, headmasters and deputy headmasters who had served four or more years lost their posts. Meanwhile, the Education Ministry issued a regulation that set new rules for the appointment of replacements. Former administrators were given the chance to regain their posts on the condition they passed a fresh evaluation. Commissions comprised of education department directors in provincial and district administrations evaluated more than 16,000 people and disqualified half of them. The elimination method was perplexing. While none of the candidates sat for a written exam, they were given “performance scores” though no criteria of accomplishment, skill or experience had been determined.