Corruption Allegations Regarding LGS 2025

The 2025 High School Entrance Exam (LGS), held on June 15, seems to be the most controversial one yet. Controversies arose as, allegedly, exam questions were leaked online while students were still taking the exam, prompting many parents to call for the exam to be repealed. Later, many students, parents, and teachers came to the conclusion that the 2025 exam was the hardest one since LGS was first introduced in 2018, which only added fuel to the debate. However, what really turned the exam into a tool for political use was the unexpected results and the number of people who achieved a perfect score.

To start with the core issue, according to X polls and interviews done by major media outlets, many students and educators express dissatisfaction with the concept of LGS because it is the single determining factor for which high school a person will attend. Moreover, the exam being administered to students that are at the beginning of their teenage years is seen as an unfair burden on young kids. LGS is growing in importance by the year because of the decreasing quality of education, the unstable economic state of the country, more people wanting to study abroad, and more people trying to get into top high schools. This increases the competition, and those with the aim of foreign education are pushed to strive for top high schools like Saint Joseph, Üsküdar American Academy, or Istanbul Erkek, whose students are known to study abroad after graduation. This competitiveness pushes many new parents with sufficient financial resources to start preparing their kids from the start of fifth grade by sending them to cram schools or hiring private tutors to ensure acceptance into top high schools that present their students with networking opportunities like no other. Hence, due to over-ambitiousness, no matter the year or nature of the exam, a certain part of the population is always unhappy.

Exam questions circulating online while the exam is still going on isn’t a new controversy either, as the same topic is brought up by parents every year with no concrete evidence to prove it. X users and parents allege that if a student hides their phone on themselves before the exam and goes to the restroom, despite the possibility of losing time, they can access the questions online and upload them to ChatGPT or other AI algorithms to find out the solutions, or have an acquaintance send them the answers. Though it seems unlikely for supervisors to miss a phone, it is very plausible if the student refrains from touching it while in the exam room, especially when considering that some users on X claim that the students’ bodies aren’t checked before entering. Typically, when a phone is caught during an exam, the exam of the student should be revoked. However, according to claims by X users and several other exam takers, students who were caught using their phones had them taken away and were let off with a warning, without their exam papers being taken right away.

Furthermore, many people are surprised that the hardest LGS exam to date yielded the most number of perfect scores. In chronological order, 2018 had 18, 2019 had 565, 2020 had 181, 2021 had 97, 2022 had 193, 2023 had 562, 2024 had 352, and 2025 had 719 perfect scores. Consequently, students with only one or two mistakes found themselves in the same percentiles as those who made three or four mistakes in previous years. Since there are numerous identical scores, GPA, date of birth, and the number of absences will play a much bigger role in the placement of students in renowned high schools than they did in previous years. Generally, the top high schools in Türkiye take approximately 150 new students a year, which means that students with perfect scores can almost fully occupy the top five high schools in the country. Hence, high school applications, especially for public ones, are expected to be extremely competitive.

On the political side, most citizens and members of parliament believe that these unexpected results are just another example showcasing the corrupt nature of the government. The distribution of the number of perfect scores according to cities can be seen below.

The announcement of 719 perfect scores took social media by storm, generating various conspiracy theories. For example, even though, according to the results mentioned above, there are only 10 perfect scores from Diyarbakır, many users on X claimed that there were 300, which aroused a lot of suspicion among citizens about whether the answers of the exam were shared with some schools or groups beforehand. However, the debate got even more heated when IYI Party Deputy Turhan Çömez stated, "36 students from Bursa Mahmut Celalettin Ökten Imam Hatip Middle School scored a perfect 500 with zero mistakes in the LGS. The total number of students who scored a perfect 500 in all other Imam Hatip Middle Schools in Türkiye is 27." However, Çömez’s claims are not supported by evidence. The Instagram post by Bursa Mahmut Celalettin Ökten High School, which Çömez based his claim on, doesn’t in any way claim that all the students mentioned in the post were from their school. On the contrary, the caption states that the students mentioned in the post are the students studying in Imam Hatip schools nationwide. Once again, according to AA, there are 63 students in total from Imam Hatip schools who have achieved a perfect score, with none of them being from the high school mentioned by Çömez. When this data is taken into consideration, Çömez seems to be wrong about the number of total perfect scores from Bursa Mahmut Celalettin Ökten AIHL, since it isn’t even mentioned in the above list. Furthermore, if there were actually 27 perfect scores from the school Çömez mentioned, then the number of perfect scores in Bursa couldn't be 20, as seen from the map above.

Yusuf Tekin

This is the first year that the number of students who achieved a perfect score and attended an Imam Hatip had to be listed because of the large controversy regarding the corruption of the exam. When asked about the allegations, the Minister of National Education, Yusuf Tekin, stated, "We explain it clearly, as if to someone slow, but they still don’t get it. The bad smell isn’t coming from the LGS; it’s coming from CHP-run municipalities." This statement was met by backlash because of the word choice of “slow” and Tekin’s attempt to deviate the topic from LGS to investigations opened against some CHP municipalities regarding corruption and bribery. Additionally, this isn’t the first time Tekin has been involved in a controversy regarding exams. In 2017, which was the last year of the previous high school entrance exam, TEOG, Tekin was the MEB undersecretary. Controversies spurred that year as it was rumored that there were “17k perfect scores.” However, this claim was proven to be incomplete since TEOG had two legs. At the time, Tekin made the following statement: "It is not surprising that 17k people have gotten a perfect score. Just as we have students who score 100 in the regular exam, we have them here as well. If we are definitely going to create a category of 'high achievers', we can say that students who answered all questions correctly in the common exam conducted in both periods are categorically more successful. The number of those students is only 665. 665 became first in TEOG, and they answered all tests correctly in both periods." This statement was also met with backlash because even though 17k perfect scores are only for one part of the exam, it was still considered too high, which led most to question whether TEOG was sufficient to distinguish students. It is clear now that TEOG was indeed not sufficient since LGS is the new exam format. On July 15, Tekin gave a statement about LGS ‘25, which was extremely similar to the one he gave for TEOG back in 2017. He stated: “This is an indication that the policies implemented by our ministry are successful. We see that questions appropriate to the students' levels are being asked. This is a healthy situation.” With history seemingly repeating itself with similar controversies and statements, it is unknown whether LGS will face the same end as TEOG. Though LGS hasn’t been replaced yet, it is no longer the only requirement to be fulfilled if students want to study in “project schools,” which are schools that are established to represent their schools, regions, or countries with the projects they develop. The conditions for student admissions were altered by the regulation announced in the gazette on July 12. Students who fall within the top 1% achievement rate in the MEB's national exam, which is currently LGS, can apply to the project schools affiliated with the General Directorate of Secondary Education. Additionally, these students must be successful in a special exam conducted by the school or the ministry. In vocational high schools and Imam Hatip high schools, the criteria for special exams conducted by the school or the Ministry will be determined in the guidelines published by the relevant general directorate, based on the results of the central exam and the percentage achievement rate in the country, in line with the special programs implemented at the school.

Lastly, the motion to investigate claims regarding the LGS was rejected with the votes of AKP and MHP in the parliament, which again caused backlash from the public. Thus, it seems like the opposition and the public will continue to pressure the government regarding transparency.

Edited by: Leyla Hacıoğlu