The Project for the Identification, Enrichment and Monitoring of Turkish Students’ Vocabulary

“The Project for the Identification, Enrichment, and Monitoring of Students’ Vocabulary” is a comprehensive educational and research initiative conducted by the Ministry of National Education in Türkiye. The project aims to scientifically identify, systematically monitor and enhance students’ vocabulary knowledge—such as words, concepts, idioms, and proverbs—in line with their age, grade level, and developmental stage. Launched in April 2024 and planned to run for three years, the project is built upon a data infrastructure supported by artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies.
The project involves more than seven thousand textbooks, documents for children published by bodies such as the Ministry of Family and Social Services, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and TÜBİTAK, over eleven thousand children's literature works, written transcripts of video content from platforms such as TRT Çocuk (www.trtcocuk.net.tr) and EBA (www.eba.gov.tr), children's theatre scripts, as well as datasets including idioms, proverbs, and scientific terminology. Additionally, the project integrates questions from the national scholarship and high school entry exams administered by the Ministry of National Education, students’ responses to open-ended items in examinations such as ABİDE (Academic Skills Monitoring and Evaluation) and the Four-Skills Turkish Language Exam, and reading passages from the Higher Education Institutions Exam (YKS) administered by ÖSYM. All the materials are tagged by teachers involved in the project based on criteria such as word class, semantic field, frequency of use, and age appropriateness, and are analysed using multiple methods.
The project aims to identify students’ current vocabulary across a wide range of materials—from textbooks to digital media, including written, audio, and visual sources—to establish grade-specific target vocabulary lists, which will then be made available to stakeholders working in curriculum development, textbook writing, and children’s literature. Moreover, in line with its goal of fostering a culture of reading, the project team will organize seminars for students, teachers, and parents to encourage reading habits, promote meaningful text interaction, and promote effective reading strategies.
This initiative is being implemented in collaboration with institutions such as the Turkish Language Association, TÜBİTAK, the General Directorate of Libraries and Publications under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Yunus Emre Institute, as well as other organizations that produce child-oriented content.
To ensure the project’s sustainability, the assessment of vocabulary and monitoring of textbooks will be carried out by the Board of Education (TTKB). The technical components involving artificial intelligence and natural language processing will be coordinated by the Innovation and Educational Technologies General Directorate (YEĞİTEK), while the vocabulary monitoring model developed for students will be implemented periodically by the General Directorate of Assessment, Evaluation, and Examination Services.