Questioning Administration Processes and Autonomy of Higher Education System in Turkey

Abstract

In recent years there is a leading discussion about the changes in higher education system in Turkey both on the media, public and among the academic staff at the universities. The Turkish government has already introduced many new universities since the early 2000s and invested on the facilities, infrastructures and university personnel. The idea behind investing on the new universities was originated in the idealism or slogan called “a university for each province”. By this idealism, a large number of universities have been founded in many small cities located in rural areas. Vocational schools under body of newly born universities were also grounded in very small districts of the provinces. But it was not a simple process to establish necessary infrastructures and recruit or train academic staff with adequate experience and competences for newly born universities. The Council of Higher Education introduced a program called Faculty Member Training Program and switched on 50-D employment type, designed particularly for research assistants and based on short term contracts and precarious work. In addition Ministry for National Education initiated a program titled Selection and Placement of Students for Post-graduate Study Abroad, which is an exam for those candidates who want to take master and doctoral education abroad. The selection processes for both programs are highly centralized and questionable but the issue which is even more serious is about the number of the positions reserved for particular fields of studies. All in all, this paper will mainly focus on the processes of administration processes for employment and autonomy of Turkish universities.