The university and the provinces

With the implementation in 2007 of the decision to establish a university in every province in Türkiye, no province was left without a university. However, it could not be expected that on the day after this founding decision the university would come into play in all provinces with nearly all its requirements. What those who are somewhat familiar with the nature of the work will understand is that this was, in the end, a setting out, and that the universities established needed a minimum of time to attain a certain quality, equipment, infrastructure and superstructure.

In response, the first reactions heard were voices saying "a university is not established by hanging a signboard." In fact, the expression "provincial universities" has always been heard in Türkiye with all the universities established after the Darülfünun. Even our METU, which today ranks among the top 400 of the world's universities, in its first days after being founded in 1957 gave education in a small building resembling a middle school building, and could not escape being mocked as a "barracks" and a "shantytown university." The same criticisms were made later of the universities established in İzmir, Erzurum and Trabzon: "Can there be a university in the provinces?"

Do those who say this think that all 5000 of America's universities, spread to nearly every corner of the country, are central universities?

In an article I wrote in 2003 in the journal Toplum ve Bilim titled "The Province-Center Dialectic from University to Multiversity," I spoke of how the concept of the university itself excludes the concept of the province, or the reverse. Provincialism can always constitute the most important obstacle to the realization of the university ideal. Because the university is the name of universalization, of crossing borders, of encountering what is different, of opening oneself to the accumulated pool of the world in thought and science. The province, on the other hand, is a concept that keeps a person from opening to this universal. That is why the university initiative does not remain confined to the university alone; at the same time it works as an attempt to open the country's culture, manners and customs to the world, in a way to eliminate the province. In doing so, it may have to wrestle for a long time with the province and provincialism, of course.

With the establishment of a university in every province in Türkiye, what was aimed at was of course not only universitization. The university has never in any case been made up of the university alone. It was also aimed that the university, with all its appurtenances, the ecosystem it forms, the economic dynamism it leads to, and its population mobilization, should function as an important actor in economic and social development. Indeed the university has more than fulfilled this role in all provinces since the day it was established. Meanwhile it has always been questioned how close it comes to the university ideal, and being questioned is actually not bad. Whoever questions it, and for whatever purpose, positing the university ideal as a goal always constitutes one of the mirrors for the university to improve itself.

Truth be told, not limited to provincial universities, on the horizon of all criticisms directed at the university ideal there is a university ideal, and as in all ideals, this ideal has a strangeness to the real world. The university is seen everywhere and at all times as an environment in which research that provides scientific development is carried out freely and at the highest quality, and it is assumed everywhere that it will work in the same way in accordance with this ideal.

Yet the university as an ideal is, by its nature, very far from displaying this singleness, this sameness in practice, and must diversify, in a way be realized as a multiversity. Because the university's only purpose is not to do research; on the contrary, it also has a mission of transmitting the existing body of knowledge, of educating and training professionals, and between education and conducting scientific research there is always an unavoidable distance.

This distance can be seen especially in the teaching load on the faculty member who has to train students. At the level at which the basic knowledge related to a profession is given, going beyond already institutionalized or routinized knowledge to make discoveries and produce science is, as you will appreciate, not very possible. One must not forget that the university institution's greatest activity is devoted to training these professionals (doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, theologians, teachers, etc.). Of course it is not possible to realize the idealistic criteria that are tried to be run on the university within the horizon of these university activities.

This natural tension between being a research university and being a teaching university has always played a determining role on the university ideal. In the US, within universities that have to adapt to market conditions, base their revenues on student revenues, and have their professors evaluated by students, the atmosphere of scientific research and development is also seriously restricted.

In Türkiye, on the other hand, the new provincial universities that began to open about 16 years ago have come quite a long way as the years have passed, integrating with their cities while also transforming them. There is no point in trying to prove that they are not universities by trying to show that each of them is not a METU or a Hacettepe. By that measure METU is not a Harvard or an MIT either. But the existence of these universities perhaps also forms a driving force for the universities in the center, and perhaps greatly strengthens and feeds the nationwide university ecosystem. Moreover, most of these universities, with work in harmony with the development potentials of their own cities, are signing precisely the very important works expected of them.

I said all of this actually as an introduction to a few words about the book "Provincial Universities," which Tuğba Tekerek found it fit to subtitle "The AK Party's Back Campus," but we have no room left to continue, and while I was writing this article, the London-based international higher education rating organization Times Higher Education (THE) published its "World University Rankings 2023" report. According to this report, 3 universities from Türkiye are in the top 500, and a total of 11 universities in the top 1000. More important than this is that Türkiye is now seen as one of the best-represented countries in the overall world ranking. There are 75 Turkish universities in the ranking. This number was 61 last year. It was emphasized that the number of universities from Türkiye entering the ranking has increased more than threefold compared to 2018. This makes Türkiye the seventh best-represented country in the ranking after giants such as the US, India and China. In these rankings, in which evaluations are made according to different criteria, it is very clear that Türkiye is covering a very great distance. Therefore we will continue to talk about this later too.