The concept of development has mostly been used as a synonym of or in place of various other concepts like progress, development, modernization, and industrialization. These terms imply that development is directly linked to economic issues. However, as it is the case for every societal issue, the concept of development is also directly linked to diverse fields in addition to the economy. Those studies that examine different facets of development must, therefore, collaborate with other areas of academia. This study highlights the concept of development and how it has manifested practically in society and its relationship with public education in Turkey. Education, as a social institution, occupies a central place in Turkey’s development plans because its modernization period sought to use education to “catch up” with the West in nearly every area and to mold the entire society into a Western one. Together with formal education, public education was instrumentalized to modernize society and—given that development and modernization are used synonymously in Turkish—to cause it to develop. Being both modern and developed are therefore so intrinsically intertwined that it is as if they are merely two sides of the same coin, inseparable from each other. Development prioritizes the progress of countries on social and economical terms, labeling countries, most of which are located outside of the Western world, as being underdeveloped, developing, or undeveloped. This veritable quest for development emerged following the Second World War and has become an issue upon which all industrialized countries, including arch-rivals, have agreed. Mostly supported by international organizations and Western countries, development discourse has evolved into a type of planned development, leading to prescriptions for precipitating socioeconomic development being given to countries considered to be moving too slowly in their journey toward progress. One of the most prominent items of these road maps is education. In addition to formal education, adult education is held to have the potential to instigate rapid progress and development. Seen as a tool for social progress (Lindeman, 1945, p. 4), adult education has undergone constant content changes to align it with the needs of the era. The fact that adult education programs are both short term and flexible facilitates makes them easy to be restructured in accordance with society’s changing needs. Indeed, adult education, given that it allows one to obtain one’s desired goals more rapidly than formal education, has always been given precedence during periods of social upheaval and change. 

After the Second World War, Western capitalism implemented Keynesian welfare policies and non-Western societies were motivated toward development through industrialization as a way to achieve prosperity. Managing development in a planned way has been presented as the basic prerequisite for receiving foreign aid and investments. This requirement ensures the controlled integration of so-called underdeveloped countries while also allowing for third-party countries to intervene whenever they deemed it necessary (TMMOB, 2007, p. 6). The desire of non-Western countries to reconstruct their society through the planned development approach proposed by the West laid the groundwork for both adult and public education’s significance during this period. 

During the years following the Second World War, Turkey began to employ public education flirt with the notion of public education. However, it was not until 1960 that public education became a fundamental education policy, at which point public education centers were founded throughout the country. Directly tethered to the concepts of development, modernization and progress, public education and the curriculum it would teach were organized accordingly.

A look at the timeline of adult education in Turkey reveals that periodical changes have occurred in response to the needs of each period. Established in the 1930s, Community Houses (Halk Evleri) were instrumental in disseminating the national identity that the new regime wanted to impose. During the 1960–1980s, however, public education centers that conducted both cultural and professional activities emerged to inoculate the prevailing notion of development during that period as a transition from public education to non-formal education was underway at that time. Naturally, this brought about changes in educational content. After 1980, neo-liberal policies highlighted the concept of life-long learning instead of non-formal education, and adult education was again reorganized to fit this ideology.

The literature examining this period reveals that public education was presented as the solution to many perceived social woes, like the economy, culture, women, youth, democracy, regional differences, and leisure. Many issues were dealt with in relation to public education. This understanding has also been resonated in the development plans executed since 1963. Specifically, public education was widely included in the first two development plans.  

The post-Second World War notion of development and the Western model of planned development were implemented after the 1960 military coup in Turkey. The first fiveyear development plan prepared by the State Planning Organization was published in January 1963. Eleven development plans have since been made. However, planned development was an economic and political choice only between 1960 and 1980. The growing influence of neo-liberal policies after 1980 led to a change in Turkey’s economic and political understanding, as was the case for the entire world. Accordingly, we have chosen the first four development plans and the importance of public education described in these plans to constitute the core issue of this study. We have examined several aims of public education included in these plans, including educating women, environmental consciousness, technical information, and vocational education. With all that said, however, it still must be emphasized that all forms of such education were formulated to reach the ultimate goal of being developed, modernized, and westernized.