Abstract

Turkey has more than 130 years of experience of elementary teacher education in formal meaning after opening of the first elementary teacher school. During this time period, approximately in every 10 years there were some major changes based on the level of elementary teacher schools such as middle school, high school or higher education institutes, the number of years of education, and the name and weekly hours of courses. The average percentage of weekly hours of science or science related courses is around 9.69%. The highest percentage of weekly hours of science courses in the history of Turkish elementary teacher schools with the range of 12.1% and 16% belongs to the beginning of Republic or Atatürk era between 1923 and 1938 years. This also shows the main approach of the era of Ataturk to the education as well as elementary teacher education. The lowest percentage of weekly hours of science related courses as 2.1% corresponded to the two-year higher education institutes during 1970s. It shows that this period was the most neglected, and politicized era in Turkish elementary teacher preparation and education. On the other hand, Turkish elementary teacher education has begun to show acceleration in changing and takes its proper place in both qualitative and quantitative meaning, such as increasing the level of elementary teacher education schools to four-year college level institutions and the percentage of weekly hours of science related courses.