​ Turkish Higher Education Gets Full Marks for Many Indicators from European Commission

January 18, 2025

Erol Özvar, President of the Council of Higher Education, stated that the Turkish higher education system received full points from 9 out of 18 basic indicators in the 2024 Bologna Process Implementation Report. He announced that Türkiye, which received a passing grade in all indicators, scored 4 out of 5 points in 6 basic indicators and 3 points in 3 indicators.

There are 18 basic indicators related to higher education in the report and these indicators were evaluated on a 5-point scale. Of these indicators, 9 were related to basic commitments regarding education levels, recognition and quality assurance, 8 were related to the social dimension of higher education and 1 was related to internationalization.

Türkiye received 5 points from the following Bologna indicators: “Monitoring the implementation of the ECTS system by external quality assurance”, “System-level automatic recognition of degrees for academic purposes”, “Stage of development of the external Quality Assurance systems”, “Supporting vulnerable, disadvantaged or underrepresented groups of students and staff in participating in international mobility”, “Stage of implementation of the Diploma Supplement”, "Implementation of national qualifications frameworks", "Student participation in external Quality Assurance", "Level of international participation in external quality assurance" and "Monitoring and data collection".

“Facilitating synergies for an inclusive lifelong learning”, "Effective guidance and counselling services", "Sustainable funding for equity, inclusion and diversity in higher education", "Inclusive learning environment and institutional culture", "Implementation of agreed Bologna degree structures" and "Policy dialogue on implementation of principles and guidelines" were rated with 4 points.

The indicators rated with 3 points were “Level of openness to cross border Quality Assurance of EQAR-registered agencies”, “Enabling flexible modes of lifelong learning in higher education”, and “Portability of public grants and publicly-subsidized loans”.

Özvar stated that the European Commission published the Türkiye Report in Turkish for the first time on its official website. The report can be accessed at https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/b3eb2763-cf0a-11ef-be2a-01aa75ed71a1/language-tr .

In his assessment of the Bologna Process Implementation Report, Özvar stated that the data clearly demonstrates the great capacity of Turkish higher education. He emphasized that the Turkish higher education system has gained great momentum in recent years and has managed to stand out in many fields. He noted that they are conducting a comprehensive evaluation process regarding all indicators in the report.

The report emphasized that Türkiye is one of the European countries with high-level coordination structures or mechanisms to address issues such as equity, diversity and inclusion in higher education. Türkiye also demonstrated a strong commitment to provide sustainable financial support to ensure equity, inclusion and diversity, and is one of the leading countries in strengthening the social dimension in higher education.

According to the “European Higher Education Area Key Data” section of the report, Türkiye has the highest number of higher education students among EHEA countries. In terms of the number of academic staff, Türkiye recorded an increase of 15.1 percent and has one of the youngest communities among member countries in terms of the average age of academic staff. The proportion of female academic staff in Türkiye also approached the average of the EHEA countries.

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