The topic on the agenda today is the education system in Turkey, especially the private sector. This is something that I have experience of from three different angles: firstly as a schoolchild; later as a teacher and now both as a teacher and a parent. My perspective has obviously changed a great deal throughout this metamorphosis and I feel I have gained a lot of insight as a result.

Since becoming a mother I have really begun to worry far more about those deficiencies of our education system that previously I had shrugged my shoulders at. Having a child of your own, a vulnerable four year old daughter starting out on her school career, really brings everything much closer to home.

Like any discriminating parent, I want the best for my child. Unfortunately the standard of education given by government schools is very limited. There are too many children in a class, not enough classes, not enough resources and not enough teachers. There is a long list of fairly serious negatives. Sure, there are some well-organised state schools but these are few and far between. There are also a great many private schools opening up and hoping to profit from the shortfall in state provision. In particular there has been an explosion in the number of private kindergartens opening up in Turkey.

I have become intimately familiar with institutions of the latter kind thanks to my daughter embarking on her pre-primary education this year. I also have a background of teaching in a private primary school here and my husband, too, has weathered four years of similar experience. As a result of these experiences we have begun to feel more and more uncomfortable about what is going on.

To start with, the most important message instilled into our children is, "The more money you have, the more important you should think you are." As school children evolve from being purely recipients of knowledge and skills into financial increments to the owners' investment portfolio schools are quick to realise which side their bread is buttered on.

In order to pay for this private education it is usually necessary for both parents to go out to work. However when this happens and the school fees are paid the child doesn't necessarily benefit because there is no-one at home to greet the child after school, so they usually get dumped in an after-hours class at the end of the day and endup putting in ten or eleven hours a day at school. A very early start to the day capped by a late finish. Is this in the best interests of the child?

If the underlying aim of private schools is to maximise their profits, it follows that means may well be to minimise their costs. This may mean employing younger, less experienced and less qualified teaching staff. This is particularly true in kindergartens. It might also be said that the more experienced teachers would baulk at the prospect of entering classrooms stuffed to the corners with quite so many toddling and crying 'increments of profit'. Unfortunately the bureaucrats from the Ministry of Education that one might hope to oppose this tendency are beset by tunnel vision and can hardly bear to tear themselves away from an obsession with the precise placement of the Ataturk busts or the centimeter dimensions of the toilet doors. It seems that they have little time or inclination to consider anything so outlandish as the quality of the children's learning experience.

Children of three years old need to begin to socialise with their peers. They need to enter different and more stimulating environments than the four walls of home. In England the government funds free schooling for four year olds every weekday morning. By contrast in Turkey one is forced to outlay nearly as much as a month's rent for the same privilege.

When you first take your four year old child to school and leave him or her there in the hands of strangers it is an emotional and difficult time for both of you. If it is a typical school they'll grab the child from you and whisk them away hoping that a swift separation will minimise the tears. Maybe it does in some cases, but for many parents and children it is an unecessarily traumatic experience and no gentler alternative wıll be offered. Unless it is a very expensive school teaching staff have neither the time nor the awareness to do things differently. How many of us can afford that very expensive alternative? Right from the outset your little child meets the message, "The more money your parents have got, the more attention you'll get". This is the first time real – unpleasant – life says "Hello" to your child.

It may be inevitable that your child will be upset when they start a new routine in their life. We all know this, but there are so many different ways to start. Even if we have better ideas how to make such transitions easier for those concerned there is nothing we can do to change things. Is the only recourse to close one's ears so as not to hear your child's unhappy screams from behind?

Another thing is that when your child is trying to settle into school and looking for security in the new environment, you learn of stone-headed teachers threatening your child, "If you don't stop crying, your mother won't come and pick you up." What message does that give to the child? Be compliant and obedient to these shouting strangers or be abandonned by your parents. Does the child, in that alien and intimidating environment have any greater fear?

Let's talk about meal tımes. Acceptable behaviour is defined by finishing all the food on the plate. Children who don't want to oblıge are 'helped', with whatever degree of force is necessary. Meals are started with the ritual of repeating archaic and incomprehensible formulae, such as, "What we eat becomes or soul, what we drink turns to blood inside us, bon appetit to all of us, to all of us!" Thereafter good digestion is facilitated by the constant barking and sniping of "Be quiet", "Stop it", "Don't do that" and "Sit down". Where is anything pleasant in the experience? If you think that the teachers have a rough job and it must be difficult to control all those kids maybe you're right, but still there's something missing. Something like love, perhaps?

Earlier I raised the subject of minimising costs to maximise profits. As the daughter of an accountant, I understand this as a principle of business, but I can hardly agree that it should be any business of a principal. Whilst classes bulge as more and more children are crammed into them, the amount of attention they can expect from the teacher diminishes in proportion. Also the size of the playground (assuming there is such a thing), the amount of toys, of books, of paints etc.. Everything gets reduced and the environment impoverished. Going out at break time becomes a rarer and rarer treat. Just imagine helping so many little kids find their shoes and coats, let alone help them to put them on. Keep your eyes closed and you won't see these things going on.

What solutions are there to these problems? First of all an education system should be based on love and respect for the individual. Students and parents should be partners with the school in education, not adversaries. Time and loving attention is needed to be able to understand children and their real needs. Without this, a system insensitive to individuals and their feelings, can only produce a robotic simulacrum of an education.

Please think of your child starting life with such a tough experience. Maybe even you couldn't stand it. What should you look for when choosing a school for your child? Should you be swayed by the sales pitch of the principal, or by the amount of money they spent on their wardrobe? No, the place to start is with the teacher in charge of your child's class. Then find out how many children are in the class and how many there are going to be. Then look, is the classroom big enough? How many books are there in the school library? Are they good looking books or boring, dog-eared and old. How functional are the toys? How much money is the school spending on stationary and art materials (always a good place, after salaries, for a penny-pinching owner to economise).

Problems breed when the people are conditioned to see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. If money is allowed to destroy an education system that should unite the hearts and minds of young people then the future will be full of trouble. I think it's a relevant question to ask how many of our educational tycoons would have dabbled their grubby toes in the sector if there was no profit to be made, or no tarnished image to be polished up?

We must be clear that money is not everything. When we feel in our hearts that a school is the right place for our child that is the best solution for everyone. We must live our lives as percipient human beings not a triad of somnulent monkeys.

Should we spend all of our time working in order to pay for an eduction whose price is the only indication of its worth, or should we invest more of our time in understanding what's really going on in our schools and in taking active steps to ensure our kids get the education that they really need?