Report of Workshop on Improvement of Doctoral Education Published
April 15, 2022 / Ankara
The Council of Higher Education published the report of the Workshop on the Improvement of Doctoral Education which
was hosted by Hacettepe University on February 14, 2022.
The workshop was chaired by CoHE President Prof. Erol Özvar. CoHE Executive
Board Members, the rectors of the universities in Ankara and 240
stakeholders, consisting of institute officials responsible for
postgraduate education in different fields of universities, faculty
members, research assistants and doctoral students, attended the workshop.
The workshop report, in which many important issues were discussed to
improve doctoral education, was published.
In his opening speech, CoHE President Erol Özvar emphasized the importance
of this workshop in terms of improving the teaching process and taking new
steps with the participation of all stakeholders by focusing on the impact
of doctoral education on the future of Turkey. He drew attention to
Turkey's young population and stated that higher education institutions had
a great responsibility regarding all processes of doctoral education,
especially quality. He emphasized internationalization in higher education
and pointed out that higher education had an important mission in this
context. He also emphasized that doctoral graduate candidates were the
important elements of human capital in advanced research and innovative
approaches and drew attention to the specialization that doctorate
education could provide.
He underlined that the number of academic staff per student included in the
OECD reports and the national and international studies on higher education
in Turkey was far behind the OECD averages. Özvar drew attention to
Turkey's shortage of competent faculty members. He also pointed out that
the number of PhD students was quite low for Turkey when compared to
international data. Özvar emphasized that being a qualified doctoral
graduate was an important step not only for the academic community, but
also for areas of need that exceeded the boundaries of the academia, and
ultimately for national development.
The prominent topics in the workshop report were gathered under five
themes: "
Programme Opening and Student Admission", "Teaching Processes",
"Consulting", "Administrative Processes"
and "Research and Thesis Process". Some highlights from
the workshop report are as follows:
• Setting standards for the interviews held for doctoral programs,
• Improving the admission of students to the master's program, and
education and thesis processes to form the basis for qualified doctoral
education,
• Adding sections to test listening, speaking and writing skills to central
foreign language exams,
• Including sector-oriented requirements and programs to be opened in this
direction,
• Receiving the opinions of external stakeholders during the program
opening processes,
• Providing scholarships and grants to doctoral students and improving
their personal rights,
• Improving conditions for scientific research projects,
• Increasing the amount and number of YÖK Scholarships,
• Increasing research and application processes,
• Ensuring the compatibility of the courses given by faculty members with
their areas of expertise,
• Supporting faculty members in terms of teaching strategies and
techniques,
• Encouraging interdisciplinary studies,
• Establishing offices and research offices in the libraries and/or
departments that can be used by PhD students,
• Accepting three original research articles as doctoral thesis as an
alternative to the doctoral thesis
CoHE aims to take the necessary actions by evaluating the issues discussed
in this report. You can access the report at
https://www.yok.gov.tr/Documents/Yayinlar/Yayinlarimiz/2022/doktora-ogretiminin-iyilestirletme-calistayi.pdf
.