The difference of law and mentality at YÖK

Higher education, especially since the establishment of the YÖK, has been one of Turkey's most important problem areas. In fact, even before the YÖK, indeed since the 1933 University Reform, the university has been designed as the regime's most important institution of tutelage. The founding of the YÖK is nothing other than an update of this tutelage so as to make it more effective, efficient and active. The university reform of 1933, too, in no way pursued the aim of a more scientific, freer science better suited to the needs of the age. On the contrary, the aim was to raise generations that would carry out the ideology and militancy of the revolutions, which were extremely heavy in ideological weight. The Darülfünun was far from fulfilling that aim and was in fact, in every comparison, far more independent and far more scientific than the university that would be founded afterward.

Although it loaded this mission onto the universities, the single-party regime never sought to increase the number of universities or to spread higher education. More universities meant a people that could not be easily controlled and whose unwanted rise could not be stopped. That is why, before 15 years had even passed since its founding, serious purges of academics were carried out in 1946 at Ankara's DTCF, among them Behice Boran, Niyazi Berkes and Muzaffer Şerif.

Later, whenever military tutelage attempted a coup, the universities were thought of as a kind of army corps and assigned duties. University professors generally organized and raised their voices in line with military tutelage, and student incidents were staged as the stones paving the way for the planned coups.

Both after September 12 and after February 28, the universities' roles specific to Turkey were displayed in a typical manner. The universities never sought a role and performance in keeping with the universities' mission in the world. On the contrary, they adopted and carried out the absurd mission of raising generations in keeping with the regime's ideological goals. That is why dress was always considered more important than the knowledge and thought to be produced in the university. Attention went not so much to the university itself as to the identity of the persons who would attend it. Because who would hold the class advantages that a university education would provide had to be kept under control.

Not just anyone should be able to enter the university with a swagger, and no one who entered should be able to graduate unless there was certainty of his endless loyalty to the regime. If they said headscarf, it was for that; if they said beard, for that; if they said coefficient, again for that. The coefficient practice alone was an intelligent product of an application that required a perfect mathematical genius. The great big professors of the YÖK had gathered for months to make that invention!

The expected legal change in the YÖK never came about. On the legal ground the YÖK is the same YÖK. But looking at the issues all the universities I have recently visited and seen are dealing with, it is understood much better that the problem lies not in the law but in the mindset. Recently I have seen with my own eyes that universities are concentrating wholly on searches and efforts toward better ensuring research, education, student quality and participation. From Hakkari to Muş, from Siirt to Edirne, universities are exploring how they can take a better place in today's market of higher education and what difference they can make.

In recent days I was a guest at a meeting of the dean and faculty members of Istanbul University's Faculty of Open and Distance Education. I can say that what I saw thrilled me tremendously and gave me hope in the name of the university ideal. The topics discussed were wholly focused on how knowledge can be conveyed most effectively in today's age of developing communication and globalization, and how student participation can be ensured most productively.

Since it is a system built using internet capabilities, the student has no obligation to attend. When the student feels ready, he can study through the documents belonging to the relevant course. With a textbook prepared by each course's instructor and videos in which the textbook is explained in detail and descriptively, the student is enabled to go through a more interactive education process.

Technology-supported education and teaching has not at the first stage seriously affected student determination, but because the deterrence is less than in formal education and the program is more flexible, an opportunity may be created for students to participate more actively in their educational processes.

To create this opportunity, Istanbul University AUZEF has also produced applications for smartphones and tablet computers. After downloading these applications to his phone, the student can read the documents for the relevant course and watch the course's videos at any moment he feels ready. The AUZEF administration identified the demands concerning these applications through a survey among students. For example, since students often mention the problem of exceeding their internet package quota, AUZEF has produced technological solutions aimed at solving this problem.

By having small videos added within a very short time to the relevant places in the text format used for the courses, the course instructor will be able to be more explanatory where he deems necessary.

The Dean of Istanbul University AUZEF, Prof. Dr. Alper Cihan, describes the system they have built as "a system focused not on diplomas but on learning."

Seeing that university professors are focused solely on science and the business of the university, without wrestling with any ideological agenda, honestly, in a single word, truly thrilled me.

So the law is not everything. But still, while we are at it, it is worth tackling that too.