27.09.2013
Dear
Delegates,
First
of all, l would like to thank La FAGE Board for inviting me to this assembly.
It is a pleasure to be here with these kindly people and discuss the current
student problems in Higher Education.
To
begin with, l would like to shortly introduce myself. My name is Ozan Demirer,
from Turkey. I finished my bachelor on Material Science and Engineering in
Istanbul and now I’m a master student in ETH Zurich on Industrial Management. I
have 3 years experiences related to student unions in both national and
international levels. I inform you about one important point. The comments and
examinations that l will share with you during my speech, are only individual
and my analysis, not reflects the perception of any union in Turkey.
I
would like to make my speech mainly on 4 topics; History and current situation
in Higher Education Institutions in Turkey, Student Representation System,
State’s consideration on the youth and policies on Higher Education, Impacts of
youth on society during recent movements and protests.
1- History
and current situation in Higher Education Institutions in Turkey
In
the history of Turkish Republic, the institutions were not enough for young
people’s education during the first years of the country, however in mid-80’s,
there has been a huge leap forward from non-educated to highly educated society
with establishing new higher education institutions as you can see from
figures. Although there were 82 universities before 2006, 95 new universities
are founded after this year. In 2013, there are 107 state universities, 67
foundation universities, in total 175 universities and there are more than 4.5
million students are studying in these institutions.
I
would like to briefly talk about the structure of the Higher Education. There
is an institution called Council of Higher Education, located in Ankara, which
has the function of regulating the Higher Education System. It is an autonomous
institution and every university has to obey the regulations of this council.
This council has been found during the military regime in 1982 and it has been
used by every political power for ideological reasons which have bad impacts on
the independency of the universities and independent-thinking environment.
2- Student
representation system in Turkey
Student
organization culture has a long history with some associations. Many student
unions, councils and associations have been founded and some of them have been
closed down in the last century. However, nationwide systematic representation
has started in 2006 as named National Student Council with a well-structured
organization chart and election system. The election system consists of two
levels; university level and national level.
In the university level, the student representatives
are selected in 3 steps;
· First,
representative of the department is selected (Ex; the representative of
Mechanical Engineering Department)
· Second,
representative of the faculty is selected among the elected students from
departments. (Ex; the representative of Engineering Faculty)
· In
the last stage, representative of the university is selected among faculty
representatives.
In
national level, there are general assemblies for elections and all
universities’ student representatives’ vote for next 2 years’ new board. The
council has a rigid structure with an executive board, supervisory committee
and several commissions.
3- State’s
consideration on the youth population and policies on higher education
Perception
of the state on youth movements has been varied during history in Turkey. In
late 60’s, student movements in Paris has affected the Turkey’s youth
population with a libertarian engagements. These ideological changes have
boosted the activist movements of young people and the state had acted on them
with an intolerance way. Many of the young leaders have been arrested, tortured
and unfortunately, 3 of the young leaders executed by hanging. In fact, some of
them have committed several crimes which had to be punished however the end of
the story should not be in this way.
Before
the military coup in 1980, there were several student and youth associations
based on different ideologies such as communism, nationalism and conservatism;
however the state had closed every association after the coup, even many
political parties. In truth, there were several homicides and crimes which have
been supported by these organizations however, the vital source of these
actions were the being used of the young people by political parties according
to their political benefits.
Unfortunately,
this situation is not changed in today’s Turkey. There are several student
associations which have connections with political parties beyond the
appropriate level. On the other hand, it is an important opportunity for these
associations’ youth members in order to gain experiences related to NGO’s and
political parties however the threatening point is, in several cases the
members are stuck in ideological rigidity which is formed by politicians. These
circumstances push the new generation from a rational position to a more
narrow-minded and obedient position. As a consequence, the society has been
transformed into a population -both from left and right fractions- which have a
lack of judgment of political issues and following the leaders and their
ideologies blindly.
In
the history of many Turkish states and empires, the organizational culture is
generally based on central power in several areas and the effect of this
centralized control culture would be clearly seen in Higher Education. Several
dynamics of the institutions is being supervised and regulated by Council of
Higher Education. In some cases, this regulation power has an important role
for having a sustainable education policy, such as supervising the competency
of the institutions in a legal track. However, the regulatory system of higher
education has also several negative effects on independency of the
universities. In order to obtain independent-thinking environment in higher
education institutions, the rules would not be so strictly regulated by one
unique authority, unfortunately in Turkey, this authoritarian system
dramatically decreases universities' flexibility to form their own strategy and
culture. Moreover, this system strongly lowers the universities'
competitiveness which would have helped for having a higher level of education.
In the last 2 decades, many political parties give promises to the society on
their election campaigns for closing down this institution however parties in
the power did not keep these promises.
In
last decades, state considers the new generation as a significant opportunity
for Turkey’s future because the age average of the country is approximately 30,
where the population is above 75 million. This young population would create a
massive workforce for further development of the country however; it is also a
disadvantage at the same time. Low wage rates, high youth unemployment rate and
uninsured employment are some of the problematical points for the young
population. Education plays a significant role for the solution. For instance,
there are several gaps in job market related to intermediate positions for
industry which seeks the skilled graduates that is between non educated people
and university graduates. However the vocational high schools and the
vocational higher education institutions have several problems such as low
quality of the education and low interest of the students to these
institutions. National Education policies could not create a solution for this
problem; therefore, Higher Education policies are not sufficient to solve this
issue. Another problem related to higher education is the
unemployment of the new graduates from faculty of education. The government
appointments are not sufficient for meeting the demand of the national education
system and the unemployment rate of these graduates grows year by year.
As
I have presented the statistics in the introduction part, there has been a
dramatic increase of the numbers of higher education institutions in last 2
decades. This transformation process is so significant for a developing country
in order to have a society, which has been integrated with today’s global
world; however the education’s quality in universities is a matter as important
as the quantity of the institutions. In last years, the unemployment rates of
the university graduates increases and one fifth of the unemployed people have
graduated from a higher education institution at the moment due to the low
quality of the higher education.
All
in all, the policy for increasing the number of university graduates has an
outcome for enhancing the average level of education in society. In my opinion,
this policy has to be continued with keeping the amount of the higher education
bodies constant and increasing the quality in existed institutions in order to
obtain a sustainable and world-class higher education system, otherwise, these
hundreds of institutions would just create some statistics and artificially
decreased unemployment rate.
4- Impacts
of youth on society during recent movements and protests.
First
of all, the protestor groups have to be divided into two fractions, first
fraction which has shown the reaction with attempts to damage some public
goods, the second fraction which made these movements unique. You can also see
some important demographic statistics related to this second fraction that
protesting peacefully. There were several reasons for these series of protests
which has been started in May 2013. Some reasons were usage of
state-funds, environmental concerns, changes regarding national education
policies, judicial troubles such as extremely long times in custody. However,
they were only small parts of the puzzle. The main point which made
this movement unique is the start of showing the active reaction of the people,
who was considered as a passive, internet addicted and apolitical young
generation. The reaction would be seen only directed to party in the power,
however fundamentally the movement has also targeted the opposition parties due
to their stagnant and ineffective opposition strategies. There were always two
parts of the young generation through the history of Turkey; one part who has
been engaged with political issues and the other part who consistently
positioned themselves far away from politics. This apolitical part was also
affected and moved away from politics due to previous generation’s bad
experience from military coup in 1980. Therefore, if we look at the whole
picture, there has been a huge politically new engaged generation from several
ideologies, both conservatives and liberals, which has boosted the
participation of people in national politics.
In
my way of thinking, the young people’s activation would be critically important
for having a more participant democracy and in the long term, it would also
give more responsibilities in decision-taking positions in politics and
increase the paying importance of the government and society to young
generations.
At the end, I would like to thank again to the Board of La FAGE for inviting me to
this congress.
Thank
you for listening me, Merci de m'avoir écouté.
