For the past few years, Turkey has been engaged in efforts to open more universities across the country in an attempt to provide broader opportunities to students who wish to continue their education at an institute of higher education.
However, the relatively small number of university instructors is ringing alarm bells. Education experts say at least 30,000 people are immediately needed to meet the universities’ urgent needs for instructors.
Eighty-five new universities have been opened across Turkey in the last six years. Currently Turkey has 170 universities — 102 run by the state and 68 run by private foundations. Yet, the number of instructors has fallen short of the rapidly growing number of universities. According to statistics provided by the Higher Education Board (YÖK), at least 30,000 new instructors are needed in the short term to meet the universities’ urgent need for instructors to offer courses at their institutions. And Turkey needs 110,000 new instructors to catch up with the average number of instructors in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
For the past few years, Turkey has been engaged in efforts to open more universities across the country in an attempt to provide broader opportunities to students who wish to continue their education at an institute of higher education. However, the relatively small number of university instructors is ringing alarm bells. Education experts say at least 30,000 people are immediately needed to meet the universities’ urgent needs for instructors.
Eighty-five new universities have been opened across Turkey in the last six years. Currently Turkey has 170 universities — 102 run by the state and 68 run by private foundations. Yet, the number of instructors has fallen short of the rapidly growing number of universities. According to statistics provided by the Higher Education Board (YÖK), at least 30,000 new instructors are needed in the short term to meet the universities’ urgent need for instructors to offer courses at their institutions. And Turkey needs 110,000 new instructors to catch up with the average number of instructors in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The situation at some Turkish universities is very challenging. Some universities cannot find instructors to offer courses in some departments, so those universities function without some departments. In a recent example, a private university withdrew its application to YÖK to open a school of economy and administrative sciences, saying it had failed to find instructors to offer courses in the department. Professor Talip Küçükcan told Sunday’s Zaman that the problem with the inadequate number of instructors stems from Turkey’s rapidly increasing number of universities. For him, new universities are being opened in the country to reach the OECD average. “Some big universities turned their faculties in other provinces into new universities and those new universities began to accept students straight away. They did not make any plans as to how they would manage new students. The lack of such a plan brought with it deficiencies in the number of instructors as well as in technical and physical infrastructure,” he stated.
Küçükcan also said a lack of coordination between state institutions when opening new universities also contributed to the already many problems faced by universities and their administrations. In Turkey, the government has the authority to open new state universities or allow private universities to be opened. But the decision to open new faculties or departments belongs to YÖK, which is also responsible for assigning instructors to serve at state universities.
Departments of law, social sciences with fewest instructors
In the country’s universities, the departments with the fewest instructors are those of law and the social sciences.
Private universities usually poach instructors from state universities for their institutions because they find it easier than training their own staff. Such departments as law and the social sciences are more popular among private universities because they do not require much investment, for example, in the building of laboratories or hospitals. State universities are thus growing smaller in terms of the number of instructors — especially in law and the social sciences.
Another factor that makes it harder for Turks to become instructors is the difficulty they are faced with when doing a master’s degree or a doctorate. Many complain that they are forced to spend seven or eight years trying to complete their degrees as their supervisors are unwilling to allow them to graduate from their programs.
İ.G., a student doing her doctorate at Anadolu University, complains that she lost a full year in her doctoral program when she became pregnant after getting married. “My supervisor was furious when he learned that I was pregnant. He asked me how I dared to become pregnant without asking him,” İ.G. said, adding that a controversy between her and her supervisor made her lose one year in the doctoral program. “This is my fifth year in the program. What I want is to complete it as soon as possible and get rid of my supervisor,” she added. T.L. is another student who faced a similar fate when he was doing a master’s degree at Osmangazi University in Eskişehir. T.L. was harshly scolded by his supervisor when he visited his supervisor to present him with an invitation to his engagement ceremony. “I see that you do not take your master’s degree seriously. Did you ask me before deciding to get engaged?” the supervisor reportedly asked the young man. According to T.L., his supervisor was angry because he thought his engagement would negatively impact his studies during the master’s program.
According to YÖK statistics, only 4,638 out of a total of 42,938 students managed to graduate from a doctoral program in 2011. And in 2012, this figure was 4,617 out of 61,488 students.
Project for postgraduate programs abroad ends in disappointment
Turkey’s academics are also unhappy with the lack of interest shown by the country’s university graduate population in postgraduate programs abroad. A campaign launched by the Ministry of Education in 2007 to send 5,000 students to attend master’s and doctoral degrees abroad in five years has ended in disappointment. Around 4,000 students have benefited from the campaign thus far, far below the expectations of the ministry.
According to Professor Talip Küçükcan, Turkish students are unwilling to attend postgraduate programs in foreign countries due to the financial problems they face in those countries.
Traditionally, the expenses incurred by a move abroad have been a barrier for Turkish students who are not endowed with private sponsors. The number of Turkish students studying abroad on scholarships provided by the Turkish state has seen an increase, according to the Ministry of Education, yet it is still below expectations.
Küçükcan said the Turkish state offers a monthly scholarship of $1,500 to students studying in the US and 800 pounds to students studying in the UK. “But a student in the UK spends roughly 600 pounds per month on accommodation. For this reason, students have to work to meet their expenses besides studying. These people are not that young. They feel obliged to move on with their lives, but they cannot get married there [for financial reasons],” he said, and added that Turkish students prefer to attend postgraduate programs in Turkey rather than in foreign countries because it is cheaper. Another factor that prevents Turkish students from undertaking postgraduate degrees abroad is an obligation imposed on them by the state after they graduate. The state tells those students that they will have to serve in state universities in exchange for the scholarships they received from the state after graduating from postgraduate programs abroad.
Fatih University Rector Şerif Ali Tekalan said problems faced by universities when finding and training instructors and by students when studying for postgraduate programs should be addressed in the new YÖK law. “We should immediately make up for the inadequate number of instructors. This issue should be discussed in detail when the new YÖK law is drafted,” he added.
(Today’s Zaman)
