YÖK, the university entrance exam and the preference system

Yesterday the ÖSS results were announced. Rather than the hotter topics of politics, it would be good to "choose" to write on this subject; precisely on the new developments in the "choice" system concerning it.

The ÖSS choice system rests on students making selections in a field that has been narrowed down considerably by a series of obstacles placed in front of them in the field in which they are examined. When the student's field is narrowed this much, in fact he is left with not many options to choose from. Yet the contemporary world regards "a person's making himself exist through his choices" as one of the strongest criteria of being an advanced world. That is why it takes care to structure all of life so as to multiply the options a person can choose at every stage and make them accessible. How successful it is in this is of course a separate matter, but especially where education is concerned, instead of leaving a person at every stage between two options one of which is worse than the other, it aims to offer as many options as possible that can be reconciled with his own personality, means and expectations for the future.

Unfortunately, the choice system in Turkey has settled on the logic of cutting down the options that can be chosen at every stage.

The limitedness of the higher education service offered until now was such that it could meet very little of the demand piling up at the gates of the universities, which numbers nearly 2 million; yet there was not the slightest effort toward increasing this supply of education. On the contrary, there was an incomprehensible resistance to increasing the capacities of educational institutions or opening new universities. Naturally, this resistance served no purpose other than limiting the options of choice for young people demanding university education.

Of course the matter does not end there. Among some of the restrictions still in force, the making of the "choice of field" at the secondary education stage, and the granting of almost no possibility of transfer afterward, condemns the student to a choice he made at the secondary education stage. That a student who has made his choice at this stage cannot step outside this choice for life actually makes the choice cease to be a choice. What remains is only an "illusion of choice," but students who have been put on this course since childhood are unfortunately often made to be content with this illusion.

The SETA Foundation has these days published a book-report titled "A Comparative Analysis of Higher Education in Turkey," prepared by Talip Küçükcan and Bekir S. Gür. The book has tried to take a clear photograph of higher education in Turkey, to identify its trends of development and to make recommendations for the future.

The 238-page book contains a series of analyses and recommendations on the various problems of higher education that can be underlined, but let us note that it places particular emphasis here on the importance of increasing the capacities of universities. Indeed, under the present YÖK administration, increasing the number of universities or the student capacities of existing ones, offering student exchange programs such as Erasmus and Farabi and opportunities such as minor or double major programs point to developments in infrastructure that may gradually make the student's "choice" cease to be an illusion. For example it says:

"A significant portion of the students who pass the university exam do not register and take the exam again. To prevent students who have won a place in a university program from taking the exam again, it is imperative to raise the quality of universities. In addition, transfer between programs should be made easier and the way should be opened for moving to a different program without taking the university entrance exam." (p. 218)

In the recent dispute YÖK has entered into with Sabancı University, it would be much more appropriate to generalize to all universities the practice that Sabancı University has been trying for years, and which is in fact more in keeping with the choice opportunity of the contemporary university in this sense, that is, with its freedom-producing spirit. Making it easier to choose at every stage of educational life, and thereby opening the way for people's creative capacities in every area of life, is one of the most important missions of the contemporary university.

Unfortunately, even the new YÖK administration cannot fully free itself from this restrictive approach, which, through repeated application in Turkey, has become a norm in education. Yet, looking at its other practices so far, it can be said that the basic concept guiding the new administration of YÖK is precisely bringing the university to the liberating mission of the contemporary world.

Frankly, the freedom mission of the university is not only that every kind of idea can be freely debated within the university and freedom of dress.

These of course are still very important.

But a no less important liberating role of the university lies in the plurality and diversity of the opportunities it can offer people as they chart the course of their lives.