Being unable to stomach the Turkish universities' emergence from provincialism

That Turkey's universities have become institutions at which students from abroad can study and build careers is one of the strongest indicators of having proven their quality and of having secured a certain place among the world's universities.

In this regard, until recently we were in a truly embarrassing situation. The number of foreign students studying in Turkey was below 10 thousand. The number of students going abroad from Turkey to study, on the other hand, was never below 50 thousand. This was an indication that Turkey had a serious deficit in higher education.

In the formation of this deficit, the Turkish higher education sector's lack of much inclination for it had, of course, an important share in the first place. That is why it was not sufficiently integrated with the world's universities and made no effort at adjustment to bring its curricula and quality up to the standards of the world's universities. Without any effort to admit students from outside, higher education went on running in a closed-in understanding of higher education, with an order not open to developments in the world.

This was undoubtedly a situation very much contrary to the spirit of the "university," which by definition must be "universal." On top of that, let us not forget the separate and large share of education's being more ideological than necessary, and of university education's being seen as a reward bestowed on certain strata or ideological characteristics.

The headscarf bans and the coefficient system were, in the nineties and the two-thousands, both among the most important causes and among the indicators of the provincialization and inward-turning of Turkey's universities.

The capacity of the universities was already very limited, and there was a strange resistance to expanding it. Even if the existing facilities excluded certain segments, they could meet very little of the needs of those who could get in. While only ten percent of those who could sit the university exam each year were placed in universities, the rest were told "do whatever you will" and no other way was shown.

Yet with both the complete removal of the headscarf bans and the ending of the unbelievably absurd coefficient practice, an important part of the ideological burden on the university was lifted.

Subsequently the capacity of the universities was increased and a large number of new universities were opened. The number of universities was raised from 76 to 207. A university was established in every province, so that many disadvantages and obstacles to obtaining higher education were overcome, and higher education was turned into a sectoral development dynamic. This has had, and continues to have, a very important effect on the development of cities.

Today the number of university students has reached 8 million 240 thousand. This corresponds to nearly ten percent of Turkey's population, and in this field we have almost attained first place in the world.

Undoubtedly the negative and problematic sides of this can also be dwelt upon separately, but it is an undeniable fact that it gives Turkey very great advantages in preparing for the future of a world economy rapidly shifting toward the service and information sectors.

A heap of sociological analyses have been done on how great the effects of higher education are on economic, social and political development alike. But its importance in the development of international relations deserves to be dwelt upon all the more these days. It is necessary to show to eyes that do not see it the effects, reaching every part of the world, of the roughly 200 thousand foreign students currently studying at Turkey's universities. First of all, for the first time in the last few years Turkey is educating in its own country at least 4 times as many students as it educates abroad. It is the simplest reality that people who receive their education in Turkey have in effect become complete ambassadors of the heart and of culture between their own countries and Turkey. All of these students learn Turkish and carry their own cultures to Turkey, and they give the Turkish students they study with a universal, multicultural horizon. They create a fruitful yield, in that while coming to learn they have also taught something.

In addition, they make our universities still more open to the world, and this ensures the adoption and settling of far more universal standards and habitus than in the universities that were formerly closed in on themselves. Today, as an academic, it excites me greatly to know that 10 thousand students from 90 different countries are studying at Karabük University, and 3 thousand students from 35 different countries at Siirt University.

This exciting picture evidently, far from exciting the left opposition in Turkey, disturbs it and makes it unhappy. Last week Kılıçdaroğlu resorted to a provocative uproar, one that also treats its listeners as fools, to the effect that Qatari students would study in Turkey without exams.

How would those who do not know know? The name of exploiting the ignorance of those who do not know so savagely is nothing but political swindling.

The website that first broke the news had already apologized and withdrawn its report once the fact was disclosed that the total number of Qatari students studying in Turkey consisted of only 41 people, that very few of them were medical students, and that even this was not without exams; yet despite this denial both Kılıçdaroğlu and Akşener continued, from the rostrums of parliament, to raise an uproar with these claims, continuing their political swindling.

Let us pass over the first utterance, though there is nothing to be passed over in it either; but how are we to understand continuing these claims when official, definitive figures have been laid out plainly? You do not even need to dig underneath; from underneath and from above, the most blatant racism and hate speech shows its ugly face. But while resorting to this racism and base hate speech, there is on the other hand a complete envy and a hostile attitude toward this great success achieved by the higher education institution of their own country.

What do you want? Let me put it this way so that you understand: "Whatever the situation was in Turkey in the period when you ran the health system, that was its situation in the field of higher education too." In the face of the education system that has come from that situation to today, it is best for you to swallow your words; do you still not understand?

Incidentally, this hatred of Qatar that you vomit out with great spite will not make you better, let us tell you.