The balance between universitization and vocational education

The figures realized in Türkiye over the last twenty years regarding the rate of university education are among the most important indicators that a considerable distance has been covered on the road of development. The transitions taking place in the world from the agricultural sector to the industrial sector, and from the industrial sector to the service sector, produce a new sociological picture.

In societies where industry has not developed at all, the service sector, when it develops more than industry, of course does not produce healthy indicators. In such cases the service sector in fact develops as a low-quality sector in which the unemployed take refuge like refugees, and is recorded as an indicator not of development but of backwardness. Yet when industry has passed a certain stage, the service sector grows as a high-quality sector that requires the employment of an educated population, one that industry makes necessary, and it overtakes the industrial sector. Indeed, to the extent that the service sector overtakes the industrial sector it is recorded as an indicator of development.

For that reason contemporary sociologists, Daniel Bell being the best known, who since the seventies have regarded the service sector of this distinguished kind as an indicator of development, describe the sociological infrastructure of this sector as follows:

The service sector requires widespread and developed institutionalization of higher education. Because all areas of the sector require higher education.

Seen from this angle, it has been a very important strategic decision for Türkiye, whose industrialization has reached a certain level, to strengthen its service sector as a leg of the tripod of development. The most important requirement of this is to raise education, and of course the rate of higher education, as much as possible.

That the rate of university education has reached nearly ten percent of the population in the last twenty years has, without doubt, brought Türkiye to the point of having a very serious advantage relative to the whole world. We now have higher education units addressing every service area.

Precisely for this reason, our health system, one of the most important service areas at present, has entered the ranks of the world's few leading systems. The health sector links together a great many business and employment sectors, from doctors, nurses, and orderlies, laboratory, chemical, biological and medical equipment producers and practitioners, to hotel services and health tourism. Universities play a very important role in training the qualified staff needed in each of these fields.

In the same way, university education in Türkiye is also an important service area and is gradually being restructured both for the country's citizens and for foreign students, contributing to the development of the service sector. Of course an important service area is also forming in the chain of transportation, informatics, and the conversion of agriculture to high quality.

In the face of this picture there is no doubt that the decision and policy reached in Türkiye on university education is very apt. However, we pointed out in recent days that there may also be some problems in the implementation of this policy. For example, university education does not fully match employment and labor needs, and this prevents unemployment from falling sufficiently. Employment does not always require a university education, but the failure to regard the status thought to be provided by a university education as equivalent to certain employment formats, and the resulting unemployment, show the need for some adjustment at some point in university education.

Naturally, the university graduate enters an expectation of employment suited to this status, and the failure to meet this expectation can be a source of serious unrest in society, we said, but some news sites ignored our whole analysis and drew the inference that "we blamed university graduates."

Since it is not possible for anyone with even a minimal level of literacy to draw that inference, we put it down to nothing but ill will, and moved on. For we were blaming no one. On the contrary, what we pointed to was the necessity of carrying out the university education policy with somewhat more meticulous planning. We tried to say that there is no point in subjecting people to compulsory high school education through bused education to villages and bringing them to the doors of the universities.

Of course this opportunity must be provided to everyone who wants to study and has the potential to do so, but it is also possible to make a significant part of the population more educated and equipped for agriculture and animal husbandry as well. The way to this is through strengthening pre-university vocational education.

Indeed, the speech made the other day by the esteemed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the Organized Industrial Zones Vocational Education Centers Opening Program shows that sufficient awareness has formed on this matter.

Erdoğan pointed to some regulations within the program of strengthening vocational education centers. For example, apprentice students are to be paid 30 percent of the minimum wage (1,276 lira), and likewise 12th-grade students who have earned journeyman qualification are to be paid half the minimum wage, that is, 2,126 lira. All of these wages to be borne by businesses will be covered as state contributions. In addition, the students are being insured against work accidents and occupational diseases.

President Erdoğan pointed out that as the economy grows and the wheels of production in industry turn without interruption, Türkiye's need for qualified personnel is also increasing, and that vocational and technical education makes a great contribution to meeting this demand in line with technological needs.

In general, strengthening vocational education will enable people to participate directly in employment without being cut off from the education wheel, and will also lighten the burdens facing a healthier development of university education.

Türkiye is on a road of serious progress in a world moving rapidly toward a post-industrial society, but it will accomplish this road with its own human resources, its human capital. The way to this lies through developing education in a manner suited to the requirements of this journey.