SYSTEM

Higher education is defined as all post-secondary programs with a duration of at least two years. The system consists of universities (53 state and 19 private) and non-university institutions of higher education (police and military academies and colleges).

ACCESS

Admission to higher education is centralized and based on a nation-wide two-stage examination administered by the Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) every year. The center was established in 1973 and affiliated with the Council of Higher Education in 1981.

The first stage of the examination, the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS), consists of verbal and quantitative parts. Candidates with scores between 105 and 120 points are offered a restricted choice of higher education programs. Those with a minimum score of 120 are qualified for the second stage of the examination, the Student Placement Examination (ÖYS), which consists of five parts: natural sciences, mathematics, Turkish, social sciences and foreign language. Placement of candidates is based upon their composite scores. These scores are calculated by taking into account the scores of the first and the second stages of the entrance examination as well as the high school grade-point averages, with different weights. Figure 1 shows the placement of the candidates in Turkish universities in the 1997-1998 academic year. Starting from the 1998-1999 academic year, the second stage of the examination has been abolished.

UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION

Modes of Study

In the 1997-1998 academic year, undergraduate enrolment in Turkish universities was as follows:

In addition, 7,568 bachelor’s and 328 pre-bachelor’s level students were enrolled in non-university higher education institutions, bringing the total to 1,330,231, of which 18,662 were foreign students. This amounts to a gross participation rate of 25.5 %, i.e., the ratio of the total enrolment in higher education to the population in the age group 18-21 years of age.

figure1:Number of applicants for the Student Selection and Placement Examination and those placed in programs of hiher education in 1998.

The breakdown of students in four-year and two-year programs, excluding distance education, according to fields of study is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Breakdown of students according to fields of study

Age

The composition of the total undergraduate bachelor’s level student population was as follows:

Gender

Table 2 shows the gender distribution of bachelor’s level students among the eight subject fields.

Table 2. Gender distribution of bachelor’s level students according to fields of study

GRADUATE EDUCATION

Graduate-level programs in the universities include master’s and doctoral level programs and medical specialty training programs. In the 1997-1998 academic year, the total number of graduate students in universities was 73,838. Of this number, 39,123 were in master’s, 19,996 in doctoral and 5,719 in medical specialty training programs. With an additional 39 students in non-university higher education institutions, the total graduate level enrollment adds up to 73,877, of which 1,186 were foreign students.

The breakdown of master’s and doctoral level students according to fields of study is given in Table 3.

Table 3. Distribution of master’s and doctoral level students according to fields of study

ACADEMIC STAFF

In the 1997-1998 academic year, the total number of academic staff in the universities was 55,333, of which 18,809 held a Ph.D. or an equivalent degree. The number of foreign academic staff was 565. This gives an average Ph.D-holding academic staff to full time bachelor’s level student ratio of 1:35 and a lecturing academic staff to full-time pre-bachelor’s level student ratio of 1:56 across the country. The distribution of the faculty members with a Ph.D. degree based on the field of study is given in Table 3.

The ratio of the number of bachelor’s level students to the faculty members with a Ph.D degree based on the fields of study is given in Table 5.

Table 3. Distribution of faculty members in bachelor’s level programs according to fields of study

Table 5. Student/Faculty member ratio according to fields of study

RESEARCH

Despite scarce resources allocated to research, the number of articles by Turkish academics published in refereed journals significantly increased in the last decade. The number of such articles and Turkey’s ranking in the world in terms of publications are shown below:

SOURCES OF FUNDING

By far, the major source of income of state universities is the funds allocated through the annual state budget. In addition to this, a university has three more sources of income. First, income from the services provided by a university, such as patient care in university hospitals, and contract research, is collected in a revolving fund. Second, student contributions towards highly subsidized services are collected in a separate fund. Third, each university has a research fund made up of a lump sum grant from the state-provided budget plus a portion of the income from the revolving fund and from earmarked projects given by the State Planning Organization. The distribution of these funds in fiscal 1998, was as follows:

Only 27 % of the income from student contributions was spent for education, the rest going to very highly subsidized meals, lodging and medical services provided to the students, and to financing extracurricular activities. Thus, there are no real tuition fees in Turkey.

The allocation from the state-provided budget per full-time student between 1980 and 1996 is shown in Figure 2.

NEW PROJECTS

To expand the higher education system, preliminary studies were started in 1996 for the design and construction of a nationwide distance education system based on advanced telecommunication and educational technologies.

Since 1987, universities have sent 3,188 research assistants abroad for graduate study to be trained as future faculty members. In 1996, the Council of Higher Education established the Board for the Training of Academic Staff and Researchers in order to coordinate this ambitious and costly program. In the same year, construction of graduate student housing complexes was started at eight of the major universities so that the existing scientific research potential within the country could be fully exploited to this end.

CURRENT ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Recent demographic projections by the State Institute of Statistics clearly show that the rate of population growth in the higher education age cohort (18-21) is declining in Turkey, and that it will reach 0 % by 2002. This trend, however, in no way means that the demographic pressure on the Turkish higher education system will ease in the conceivably near future, for participation rates in primary and secondary education are constantly increasing and students are becoming increasingly more selective in the programs they seek to enter. For example, the participation rate in secondary education increased from 32 % in 1986 to 56 % in 1998. Thus, Turkey is faced with the challenge of reconciling quantity with quality in higher education.

Private universities certainly offer a means of creating additional capacity. At present, enrolment in the private universities accounts for only 2.3 % of the total and, it is rather unlikely that enrolment in private universities will approach 10 % of the total in the near future.

Clearly, state universities will by far carry the major portion of the load of higher education in Turkey. The view held by the Council of Higher Education is that higher education is a semi-public service with an associated cost, which must be partly borne by those benefiting from it. In order to reconcile quantity with quality, a healthy competitive environment must be created in the provision of this service, whereby state and private universities in Turkey will compete not only among themselves, but also with universities abroad.

Two prerequisites are considered to be sine qua non for fair competition:

• The existing line-item budgeting system, essentially prepared by negotiations on the basis of the past year’s allocations, leaves insufficient discretionary powers to state universities. Therefore, state universities must be equipped with the same financial and administrative decision making powers as those of their private competitors.

• Academic assessment and evaluation mechanisms, eventually leading to a full accreditation system, must be established so that funding can be linked to performance, and potential consumers can be properly informed about the alternatives.

Draft legislation along these lines was prepared and submitted to the Government in 1996. In the interim, the Council of Higher Education has established the Academic Assessment Board as an advisory body. Rules and regulations governing the operations of this board have been published in the Official Gazette. Attempts are also underway to incorporate certain incentive mechanisms into the existing budgeting system.