CoHE President Özvar: "We are gradually transforming programs that are
less connected to the market, employment, culture, art and literature.
We started to replace the programs that do not offer anything to
students with more employment-oriented programs."
March 27, 2024 / Istanbul
Erol Özvar, President of the Council of Higher Education (CoHE), stated
that CoHE was gradually transforming programs that were less connected to
the market, employment, culture, art and literature, and said, "We started
to replace the programs that do not offer anything to students with more
employment-oriented programs." He emphasized that the introduction of new
programs such as artificial intelligence, digitalization and big data was
also part of this transformation.
CoHE President Özvar met with the rectors of universities in Istanbul at an
iftar program. In addition to Özvar and rectors, CoHE Executive Board
Member Prof. Naci Gündoğan and CoHE Secretary General Batıkan Aksoy
attended the program hosted by Marmara University.
In his speech, Özvar stated that Istanbul, which was at the center of
economy, culture, art and tourism, had a very important and exceptional
position in the Turkish higher education system. He noted that there were
over 1.5 million university students and around 41 thousand academic staff
in 61 higher education institutions in Istanbul, and said, "The
universities in Istanbul provide high quality education opportunities to
their students and make a very valuable contribution to the scientific,
cultural, economic, social and artistic development of the country."
He talked about the recent activities of the Council of Higher Education
and reminded that they decided to open five undergraduate programs, two of
which were new, and 12 new associate degree programs in the fields of
artificial intelligence, digitalization and big data. He underlined that
they would continue to closely follow the developments in this field and
take the necessary actions.
He said that they would complete the processes carried out with all
stakeholders to determine the principles and procedures in line with the
regulations in the European Higher Education Area on micro-credentials,
which were envisaged to have a transformative effect in terms of higher
education and sectors, and that they planned to start the process of
crediting micro-credentials in the near future.
"We are taking steps to further improve the quality of our higher
education system"
Özvar noted that as part of the quality-oriented approach in higher
education, they shared with universities and the public the new conditions
they had determined for the opening of new graduate programs and the
continuation of open programs, and drew attention to the introduction of the
requirements of "accreditation" and "qualified publication". "These
decisions are fully in line with our understanding and efforts to further
increase the quality of our higher education system, which we emphasize at
every opportunity. We are taking steps in this direction. I would like to
express my satisfaction that our decisions have been accepted warmly by
Turkish universities."
"Internationalization is an important part of our vision"
He pointed out that internationalization played an important role in the
vision of the Council of Higher Education and said, "We constantly
encourage Turkish universities to increase their international visibility."
He stated that there was a great global competition in the field of higher
education and that this would increase even more in the future, and added,
"It is extremely important for Turkish universities to become ready for
this competition without wasting time."
He emphasized that it was extremely valuable for faculty members to produce
qualified and high-impact international publications and take part in
projects in terms of international visibility. He requested the rectors to
make special efforts to increase the international visibility of their
universities.