|
|
Universities
In terms of numbers, Turkish higher education is impressive. In the last twenty years it has expanded dramatically, due also to demographic pressure and in a conscious effort to educate the human resources required by an open economy in a competitive world-market. Currently there exist 51 state and 24 foundation universities in the country, complemented by two Institutes of Technology. In 2002/3, nearly 1.8 million undergraduate and over 100,000 graduate (among them, 23,149 doctoral) students received their education at these institutions.
These numbers also show, however, that the primary function of the Turkish system of higher education is education, indeed, with relatively little weight given to research. Chronically under-funded, universities have a hard time to keep up standards of education. These difficulties are compounded by the deplorable level of education at primary and secondary schools and the equally sad state of salaries at state universities. The last factor is causing a continuous brain drain from Turkey abroad, but also from state to foundation universities that have become a feature of Turkish academic since 1985. These receive tuition fees from their students and are therefore able to pay higher wages to their academic staff. Their impact on research, however, is limited yet: of the 23,149 doctoral theses mentioned above, only 483 were being prepared at foundation universities.
Despite these shortcomings, Turkey is steadily showing a better performance in the statistics on indexed scholarly articles. This also reflects the continuous efforts of some universities to improve the working and social conditions of both staff and students and to attract funding for a higher proportion of graduate students. In this respect, especially some technical schools have been particularly successful, namely Istanbul Technical University, Middle Eastern Technical University and the related parts of Bogaziçi University.
To improve the educational standards of their students perceived as especially depressing with regard to foreign languages, many universities of better academic standing are teaching in English, while others have embraced a mixed model. As examples of the first group one must list, among others, Bogaziçi, Middle East Technical, Bilkent, Sabanci, Koç, Istanbul Bilgi, of the second, Istanbul Technical Universities. At Galatasaray University, the language of instruction is French, as it is at Marmara Universitys Department of International Relations. Marmara University has also a department on business administration and informatics teaching in German.
Today, at least a fair knowledge of English is widespread among Turkish academicians, but command of more than one foreign language is rather exceptional. Access to foreign language publications, though still a serious problem, has been made much easier in the last few years, and the blessings of the internet increasingly fill the gaps left by a library system that still leaves a lot to wish. Especially older literature is still an often-insurmountable problem.
The central control of both state and foundation universities by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) has been subject of heated debate since it was established in 1981. Currently (beginning of 2004) a new law is in the process of being prepared that is designed to hand some of academic and financial autonomy now held by the council back to the universities. Within the structure of universities, the over-towering influence of the rectors appears not be challenged by the legislative process.
This is the framework in which Islamic studies take their place. In many instances, departments of History or Turkish Language and Literature receive many students, but typically not those doing best in the central examinations for the distribution of studying places at university. The graduates of these departments often begin a career as high school teachers of history or literature if they acquire an educational formation certificate. For this reason, high-profile institutes of social sciences tend to accept a surprisingly high number of graduate students with a background in economics, architecture or even engineering for education in history and philology.
In most universities, their discourse is heavily influenced by the fact that Turkish history and philology are taken as the national sciences of a society that is still in the grip of a state-centered nationalism. Special weight is therefore often given to periods and topics regarded as especially illustrious: sixteenth century Ottoman state and culture or the time of Atatürk featuring prominently. Studies on the nineteenth century are also very popular topics. Subjects that are more traumatic are generally either avoided or treated in a militantly apologetic way. The positivist tradition of Turkish intellectual history together with the recently facilitated access to the state archives and manuscript libraries have lead to an impressive production of studies that are either very closely based on documentary evidence or outright text edition.
A relatively small number of departments and individual scholars, however, are addressing themselves to an international audience. The dynamic process of growth in higher education makes inter-disciplinary cooperation relatively easy, and departments at well-established universities with English language instruction have not only close international contacts but also often a very international staff.
 Islamic Studies
Disciplines
Universities
Research Institutes and Foundations
|
 |
|
