Parent with two school-age children spends 30,000–35,000 TL a month — 'free education' exists only on paper

Turkey's 2026–2027 academic year began on the morning of September 7. According to data from the Ministry of National Education and the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), the number of students enrolled in formal education reached 17.956 million, while 1.15 million children entered first grade for the first time.

The joy was short-lived: families are reporting mounting pressure on their budgets from clothing, stationery, canteen, and shuttle costs. Gülsün Süyün, a mother of two living in Balıkesir, said her older son gained admission to a project school in İzmir while her younger son was accepted into first grade, and that monthly school expenses range between 30,000 and 35,000 TL. According to Süyün, shuttle service becomes mandatory even for a school just 2.5 kilometres away within the city.

The Eğitim-İş Union also emphasized in a statement to Cumhuriyet that the constitutional right to free education is not being fulfilled in practice. The union said the situation is far more severe in households with two or three school-age children, where families make a single payment at the start of the year equivalent to several months' minimum wage.

Similar complaints surfaced during the same period last year, but stationery and clothing prices have risen noticeably across Turkey since then. Everything beyond the free textbooks provided by the state — notebooks, bags, physical education uniforms, tablets — comes straight out of parents' pockets.