Turkey’s Vocational Education Centers, known by the acronym MESEM, have become the focus of an increasingly bitter national debate. What government officials present as a pathway to employment and practical skills has, for critics, become a symbol of something far darker: the normalization of child labor, the exploitation of economically vulnerable teenagers, and a growing toll of workplace deaths among students.

The latest tragedy carried a cruel irony. On May 1, International Workers’ Day, a public holiday celebrated across much of the world in recognition of labor and workers’ rights, 16-year-old Mahir Buğra Karagön was called into work despite not being scheduled to be there. A tenth-grade student in the Food and Beverage Services department of a Vocational Education Center, Karagön was completing an internship at a pastry shop in Turkey’s Hatay province when he suffered a fatal electric shock.

His death has become one of the most visible examples of the controversy surrounding the MESEM program. Reports indicate that roughly 20 children participating in the system have died in workplace incidents over the past two years. Those deaths have occurred across a range of sectors and circumstances, including construction and industrial sites, with causes ranging from electrocution and falls from height to fatal encounters with heavy machinery.

Labor rights groups, including the Turkish organization ISIG (Health and Safety Labour Watch), have repeatedly documented allegations that students enrolled in MESEM are routinely assigned physically demanding, hazardous, and often non-educational work. According to these organizations, workplace injuries among participating students are alarmingly common, raising questions about oversight, accountability, and whether the program’s educational mission is being overshadowed by employers’ demand for inexpensive labor.

The issue reached a political flashpoint in late 2025. On December 3, sixteen members of the youth wing of the Turkish Workers’ Party (TIP) were formally arrested after staging a protest outside an event attended by National Education Minister Yusuf Tekin. The demonstrators carried a banner accusing the government of responsibility for the deaths of children in the program. They remained behind bars for approximately a month before being released on December 26.

Among those detained was 24-year-old activist Ilgaz Özer. When reflecting on both her arrest and the larger controversy surrounding MESEM, Özer argues that the system functions less as an educational institution and more as a mechanism for supplying businesses with low-cost labor. In her view, the state has effectively institutionalized a model that channels economically disadvantaged teenagers into exploitative working conditions while presenting the arrangement as vocational training.

The roots of the program stretch back to reforms introduced in 2016, when the traditional apprenticeship model was incorporated into Turkey’s formal and compulsory education framework. Students who have completed secondary school and reached the age of 15 may enroll in a MESEM program. Unlike students in conventional vocational high schools, however, MESEM participants typically spend four or five days each week at workplaces and only one day in a classroom. The system operates under the Ministry of National Education’s General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education. Upon graduation, students receive both a high school diploma and a mastership certificate. Today, MESEM programs cover 34 occupational fields and 184 vocational branches.

Supporters describe this arrangement as a practical bridge between education and employment. Critics see something else entirely.

Child rights advocates argue that the structure effectively removes students from meaningful education for most of the week and places them in workplaces that are often inadequately supervised and unsuitable for adolescents. The concern is not merely that teenagers are working, but that they are doing so in environments where educational goals are secondary to production demands.

Özer is among those who believe the system cannot be reformed and should instead be abolished altogether. She argues that while students are legally classified as learners, they are treated in practice as workers whose economic value takes precedence over their development.

“The MESEM system clearly has no function in educating or empowering students,” she says. “It serves the interests of employers willing to exploit children from impoverished households. These children deserve access to formal education just like their more privileged peers.”

Statistics illustrate the scale of the program. According to the Education Reform Initiative’s 2025 Education Monitoring Report, nearly 393,000 students between the ages of 15 and 18 were enrolled in MESEM during the 2024–2025 academic year. Participants receive wages tied to a percentage of Turkey’s minimum wage. Yet critics point out that the insurance coverage provided under the system does not contribute toward retirement benefits, while workplace conditions and safety standards are often left largely to employers themselves.

To opponents, the result is a system that weakens students’ connection to school and accelerates their entry into the labor market, particularly among lower-income families. What is marketed as opportunity, they argue, frequently becomes necessity.

The Ministry of National Education rejects such characterizations. Officials describe MESEM as an opportunity that allows young people to acquire professional skills while earning income. The government maintains that students gain practical experience under the supervision of qualified masters and receive compensation during their training. From the ministry’s perspective, the program addresses workforce needs while helping students secure employment prospects at an early age.

Yet the gap between official rhetoric and student experiences remains at the heart of the controversy.

For Özer, workplace deaths involving MESEM participants should not be viewed as unfortunate accidents but as preventable tragedies rooted in systemic failures. She also points to cases in which students reportedly experienced severe workplace bullying and psychological pressure.

Recalling the protest that led to her detention, she describes a sense of urgency driven by years of frustration. Activists, she says, had long campaigned against the program before learning about the event attended by Minister Tekin.

“We decided immediately that we needed to protest,” she recalls. “We entered the hotel lobby, shouted slogans, overturned cocktail tables, and drew the attention of security. That led to our detention and prosecution.”

Another protester, Oğulcan Akbaş, spent the same month in detention at Silivri Prison. Like Özer, he rejects the notion that the system’s primary purpose is education.

“The aim of MESEM is not to educate students or help them develop skills,” he argues. “Its real function is to provide cheap labor. Students are separated from formal education and lose opportunities to pursue higher education.”

Beyond concerns about workplace safety, critics increasingly frame MESEM as a mechanism that reproduces social inequality. They argue that while wealthier families can guide their children toward university and professional careers, poorer families often face economic pressures that make vocational work appear to be the only realistic option. In that sense, critics contend, the system does not reduce inequality but reinforces it.

Minister Tekin has repeatedly described MESEM as a model that expands opportunity and integrates young people into productive economic life. Yet opponents counter that the program frequently channels disadvantaged students into precarious labor while limiting their academic horizons. Education, they argue, ceases to function as a vehicle for social mobility and instead becomes a mechanism through which existing class divisions are reproduced.

Akbaş also challenges one of the program’s most frequently cited benefits: insurance coverage.

“Supporters say students receive salaries and insurance,” he says. “But the insurance does not count toward retirement. Lower-class children spend their youth working in factories and workshops, yet the long-term value of their labor is effectively ignored.”

Critics further note that while MESEM students technically retain access to higher education, the reality is more complicated. University entrance examinations in Turkey are intensely competitive. Students who spend most of their week working often have far less time and fewer resources to prepare than peers in traditional academic settings. The pathway may remain open on paper, critics argue, but in practice many students begin the race at a considerable disadvantage.

The debate over MESEM ultimately extends beyond vocational training itself. At its core lies a broader question about the purpose of education and whom it serves. Supporters see a system that equips young people with marketable skills and connects them to employment. Opponents see an arrangement that places economic productivity ahead of childhood development and educational opportunity.

As workplace deaths continue to draw scrutiny and activists intensify their campaign against the program, that fundamental disagreement is unlikely to fade. For critics, MESEM represents a system that systematically prioritizes cheap labor over the academic, cultural, and personal development of children. For the government, it remains a cornerstone of vocational education policy. The future of the program may depend on which interpretation ultimately gains the upper hand in Turkey’s increasingly polarized debate over labor, education, and social equality.