According to the Social Insurance and General Healthcare Insurance Code No. 5510, which is the main law of the Turkish Social Security System, apprentices and vocational trainee students are within the scope of the social insurance protection.
Accordingly, apprentices and vocational trainees are subjected to only short term social insurance branches. Thus, work accident, occupational disease and sickness insurance provisions apply to candidate apprentices, apprentices and students receiving vocational training in enterprises specified in the Vocational Education Law No. 3308. They are considered insured within the scope of the service contract (as employed by an employer).
With the Act No. 6111, candidate apprentices, apprentices and students receiving vocational training in enterprises and students employed part-time subject to the Higher Education Law, whose premium-based earnings are not more than the premium-based earnings lower limit, are included in the scope of general health insurance, and those who are not dependents of another insured are included in the scope of the General Healthcafe Insurance with the same Law. Compulsory interns, who were not previously covered by insurance, were included in the scope of partially insured with Act No. 5510 as of 2008.
In accordance with the fourth paragraph of the Article 25 of the Vocational Education Law No. 3308; insurance premiums of candidate apprentices, apprentices, students receiving vocational training in enterprises and students who are subject to internship, complementary education or field training while studying in vocational and technical secondary schools and institutions are calculated on fifty percent of the minimum wage (the lower limit of the earning subjected to social insurance premium). In this way, employing candidate apprentices, apprentices and vocational trainees is being supported by a special regulation.
