Watching universities' new tendencies from Siirt

One of the most important faces of the change Turkey has been undergoing in recent years is the spread of universities. As of 2007 the target of having at least one university in every province was reached, and in many provinces there are now more than one, whether public or foundation universities. The number of universities alone of course has no meaning, but we can now better understand how the incomprehensible resistance in the center to the spread of universities up to ten years ago cost us lost years.

Our higher education system, which offers educational opportunity to at most 150-200 thousand of the 1.7 million young people who take the university exams each year, did not even try to offer anything to the rest, leaving them to their own devices. Yet if there was so much demand for education, it was possible to treat this demand as an opportunity too, and in fact this is one aspect of the approach adopted today. Providing the supply to meet the demand is also a matter of management skill. Treating the demand not as a problem but as an opportunity...

Instead of meeting this demand, YÖK resorted to ideological measures in the face of steps that would restrict demand as far as possible. The headscarf ban and the coefficient practices were in part subjecting the demand for university education to a spontaneous pre-screening.

The presence of a university in every province of Turkey now ensures that it becomes part of the identity, urban development, daily life and growth of that city. The number of universities, which was 77 in 2002, has today exceeded 180. With its population approaching 300 million, the number of universities in the US, including colleges, reaches 5,000. In Poland, with a population of a little over 40 million, the number of universities reaches 300. In Turkey, with a population of 77 million, the number of universities, which has only just reached 180, is still far below normal. But the earlier they are opened, the faster progress is made.

One need not dwell too much on the employment problem of graduates of the universities being opened. In a sociological development in which the service sector is increasingly taking center stage all over the world, education is becoming the most important condition of employment. Moreover, the universities being opened and the series of side sectors they trigger themselves produce an important part of employment.

And the contribution that each of the universities being opened has to make to the history, culture, sociology and economy of its own city is very important.

Meanwhile, how far the rapidly increasing number of universities, particularly in the provinces, have adopted a vision of a university, and how far they have provided its conditions, is undoubtedly a question that will always be significant. After all, a university is not established by hanging up a signboard. Undoubtedly so. But we know that many of these universities have a serious awareness of the university mission and that numerous examples of serious work in this regard have emerged.

The effort that many of the universities I have recently visited, or whose work I have become acquainted with, show in bringing the university mission together with the city in which they are located, with the city's history, identity and problems, stirs up my hopes for the future of the university in Turkey. Tunceli, Muş Alparslan University, Mardin Artuklu, Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa and the Hakkari universities are the first examples that come to mind.

Last week Siirt University organized a workshop in order to build an awareness for itself for the next ten years, both for Siirt as a city and for its place in Turkey and in universal university practice. As a result of the workshop, the basic aim for the university was defined as "to be a multicultural, leading international university that integrates with the region, responds to social needs and provides regional development."

More than 50 academics, politicians, opinion leaders and businesspeople, from Siirt and elsewhere, including Can Paker, Orhan Miroğlu, Oral Çalışlar, İpek Çalışlar, Ethem Sancak, Nihat Özdemir, Prof. Refik Korkusuz, Fahri Aral and Coşkun Aral, took part in the workshop. The diversity in participation enabled the vision for the university to acquire the necessary breadth, depth and richness in local, global and universal terms.

Besides a series of difficulties, the new universities in the East and Southeast undoubtedly have very important opportunities and possibilities as well. Siirt University, for example, in light of the findings at the workshop, seems to have the possibilities to put multiculturalism and multilingualism into practice and, given its location, to revive educational traffic in Iraq and Syria.

According to the agreement currently made with Southern University in the US, students who win a place at Siirt and wish to may be able to complete part of their education in Siirt and part in America, and become entitled to receive the diplomas of both universities.

All universities trying to take their place in the market of inter-university competition will have to research such possibilities and offer them to the students they are trying to attract. This, in an entirely unexpected way, allows the longed-for internationalization of universities to gain greater momentum.

Let there be no doubt that the development of universities in Turkey in this way constitutes the strongest sociological leg of our democratization as well. Because more spread of universities means more qualified and stronger participation.