Turkey identifies gifted primary school children through a process run by the Ministry of National Education, and the children who qualify are placed at BİLSEM, the state Science and Art Centres that offer extra programmes alongside regular school. As of 31 October 2026, the guide for the 2026-2027 round has not been published, so this year's dates are not known yet. Last year the guide appeared in mid-November and nominations ran from 21 to 27 November 2025.
The dates are uncertain, but the process itself is known from last year's guide, and so is most of what a parent can usefully do in the meantime.
When will BİLSEM nominations open?
Once the new guide is out. If last year's sequence repeats, information meetings for schools come first and a one-week nomination window follows; in 2025 those were 14-20 November and 21-27 November. A similar timing is plausible this year, but any exact date before the guide appears is a guess. Registration dates in July and August 2026 that still circulate online belong to the previous round.
Which children can be nominated?
In the 2025-2026 round, pupils in grades 1, 2 and 3, assessed in three areas: general intellectual ability, art and music. Each child could be nominated in at most two areas, and no more than 20 percent of the pupils in a grade level could be nominated. The new guide may change these rules.
Who decides on the nomination?
The class teacher. The process starts with an observation form the teacher completes in e-Okul, the national school information system, and a school committee chaired by the head teacher reviews the forms. In practice, whether a child is nominated depends mostly on what the teacher has seen in class.
That is where a short conversation helps. Some children are quiet at school. Their persistence with a long puzzle at home, or the questions they keep asking about one topic for weeks, may never show in a classroom, and describing a few concrete examples gives the teacher something to look for. Insisting that the child is gifted does not help, because the teacher still has to fill in the form from their own observation. Signs worth noticing at home are covered in is my child gifted?, and the overall logic of the system in what is BİLSEM.
What happens after nomination?
Last year there were three stages. A tablet-based preliminary assessment ran from 15 December 2025 to 20 February 2026. Children who passed went on to an individual assessment between 6 April and 19 June 2026, held at Guidance and Research Centres for general ability and at BİLSEM centres for art and music. Successful candidates were announced on 3 July. From nomination to result took more than seven months, which is a long time for a seven-year-old to feel tested.
Does coaching a child for BİLSEM help?
Not for the purpose the process serves, and it can backfire. The assessments try to capture ability at a given moment; a child drilled on the same task types for weeks may score on familiarity. A child placed that way can end up struggling in a programme that moves at the wrong pace for them. There is an emotional cost as well: telling a six- or seven-year-old that they are preparing for an exam can turn something meant to feel like play into a source of worry.
Before paying for a preparation package, it is worth asking what it is meant to develop. If the honest answer is familiarity with question types, the money will go further on books, museum visits or a hobby the child already loves. Puzzles and brain games are fine at home, as long as they stay games.