Forty-eight percent of students enrolled in Turkey’s Vocational Education Centers (MESEM) have experienced at least one workplace accident, while 53 percent work more than 10 hours per day, according to a new survey underscoring child labor and safety concerns in the state-run apprenticeship system.
The survey, conducted by the Dialectical Research Institute, documented broader problems in the MESEM system, including inadequate safety training, pay below legal thresholds for some students and widespread verbal and physical mistreatment in workplaces.
MESEM allows students aged 15-18 to attend school one day a week while working four days in businesses for on-the-job training, earning a portion of the minimum wage and receiving insurance coverage.
The program is estimated to include around 560,000 students. At least 17 MESEM students have died in workplace accidents, according to the institute, which called for a radical overhaul of the system.
According to the survey, 15 percent of respondents said they worked more than 12 hours a day, exceeding legal limits even for adults, while half the students said they had no time to rest after work or during the week.
Some students also appear to be earning less than the legally required minimum for apprentices, with nearly 40 percent of respondents saying they made between 6,600 (about $148) and 10,000 lira per month.
Turkish regulations require monthly payments of 8,422 lira for 9th to 11th grade students and 14,037 lira for 12th graders.
The survey found that 49 percent of respondents received no occupational health and safety training at their workplaces, despite such training being a legal requirement.
Regarding workplace conditions, 63.5 percent of students said they faced psychological pressure from constant criticism, 22.5 percent cited insults and 9 percent named physical violence.
Only 3 percent of respondents said they reported violations to their coordinator-teacher, suggesting what the report described as a failure of supervision mechanisms.
The survey covered 463 students working in the automotive, electrical/electronics, metal, furniture, beauty/hairdressing and food production sectors mainly in industrial provinces such as İstanbul, Ankara, Gaziantep, Bursa and Konya.
MESEM has faced criticism from rights groups and labor unions, which say the system is designed to present child labor to the market in an unsecured, unsupervised and cheap manner and contributes to workplace fatalities among minors.
