In February we hosted The President of Council of Higher Education of the Republic of Turkey (YÖK) Prof. Yusuf Ziya Özcan for the Business Class Meeting series. The meeting, with the title “The Strategic Goals of Turkish Higher Education in the Globalized World” was held in Istanbul Marmara Hotel, and the Executive Committee member Prof. Mehmet Helvacı chaired the session. A total of 88 prominent businessmen and academicians, as well as graduate students, from Marmara, Yildiz Technical, Istanbul Technical, Bogazici, Isik and Istanbul Commerce universities participated in the meeting. In addition to faculty members and students from 12 universities in 46 cities in Turkey, 131 on-line participants from 7 different countries attended the live broadcast interactively using the “Element e-Class” system provided by the main sponsor Element Education Technologies.

“Solution for the Quota Problem”

The President of Council of Higher Education of the Republic of Turkey Prof. Yusuf Ziya Ozcan began his speech with a note on the problems faced by higher education institutions in Turkey and worldwide. Indicating that quota limitation is the most important problem encountered all over the world, Prof. Ozcan said “We have resorted to a number of solutions to overcome this difficulty. We reevaluated the conditions of programs with evening classes. We put pressure on Open University. We are opening 21 new undergraduate programs this year. We rearranged the quota distribution in Medicine Faculties. While there were 21 Medicine Faculties and 5 thousand 99 students in 1986-87 academic year, in 2007-2008 academic year the number has risen only to 5 thousand 117 despite the fact that 26 new universities were founded. Hence, only a quota of 18 students was created.” After stating that YOK relies also on foundation universities to solve the quota problem, Prof.Ozcan added that “There is no difference between state universities and foundation universities in this respect. We appreciate the capacity they create.”

Prof. Ozcan said that he has initiated a number of renovations after being appointed as the President of YOK and added that “giving accreditation to distance learning programs was a groundbreaking step. Thereby, diplomas acquired from distance learning programs abroad have now become acceptable.”

Drawing attention to the discrepancies between practices in university hospitals and state hospitals, Prof. Ozcan also asserted that they would be setting standards to regulate various practices including the budget allocated to the hospitals and faculty members.

With the intention of sending more students abroad, Prof. Ozcan stated that they would improve exchange programs and went on to say that “we believe while students will be travelling from east to west, faculty members will be travelling from west to east”.

Prof. Ozcan also mentioned the issue of vocational schools and stated that “by founding Technology Faculties with Applied Engineering programs we will be training staff to work hands on in the field. There are now 19 Vocational Schools, Technical Training Schools and Trade Schools. However, the graduates of these institutions cannot find jobs since they do not have a title. On the other hand, with the foundation of Technology Faculties, we will be able to train much needed staff for our country”.