Education in Turkey is governed by a national system which was established in accordance with the Atatürk's Reforms. It is a state-supervised system designed to produce a skillful professional class for the social and economic institutes of the nation. Compulsory education lasts 12 years. Primary and secondary education is financed by the state and free of charge in public schools, between the ages of 6 and 19. Secondary or high school education is not mandatory but required in order to then progress to universities. Turkey has over 200 universities as of 2022. ÖSYS, after which high school graduates are assigned to university according to their performance. Turkey has 97% of primary school enrollment among all eligible children as of 2019. This number has significantly dropped with the Syrian refugee crisis. Many Syrian children left school during the crisis. In 2002, the total expenditure on education in Turkey amounted to $13.4 billion, including the state budget allocated through the National Ministry of Education and private and international funds. The share of national wealth invested in educational institutions is higher in Turkey than average among OECD countries. Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey is the main national body of R&D in Turkey. History After the foundation of the Turkish Republic the organization of the Ministry of Education gradually developed and was reorganized with the Law no 2287 issued in 1933. The Ministry changed its names several times. It fell under the Ministry of Culture (1935–1941) and was named Ministry of National Education, Youth, and Sports (1983–1989). Since then it has been called the Ministry of National Education. Before the Republic, education institutions were far from having a national character. Schools were organized in three separate channels which were vertical institutions independent of each other. The first and the most common in this organization were the district schools and madrasas based on the teaching of the Quran the Arabian language and memorizing, the second were the Reform schools and high schools supporting innovation and the third were the colleges and minority schools with foreign language education. The Law of Integration of Education, no 430 was issued on 3 March 1924. With this law, the three separate channels were combined, the first one was closed, the second was developed and the third one was taken under the inspection and monitoring of the Ministry of Education. One of its aims was to apply secularism