Lack of vocational training aggravating unemployment problem in Turkey

Evaluating the increasing unemployment problem, triggered by an ongoing global financial turbulence, Professor Mehmet Altan told Sunday's Zaman that insufficient vocational training in the country was responsible for a considerable gap between supply and demand. “Leaving the issue of the unemployed aside, some 61 percent of the working population, or 23 million, have no profession,” he said. Altan argued that the lack of a bourgeoisie class in Turkey dealing with competition in world markets was one of the factors behind the inadequate number of educated and qualified workers in the country and added that the EU accession process would contribute to the solution of the problem. “Since Turkey does not have a bourgeoisie class which seeks opportunities to compete in global markets, no one is motivated to organize the training of qualified employees,” Altan said. “Employers looking for qualified workers fail to find enough workers with the skills to meet their needs, and those who are searching for jobs remain jobless,” he said as he complained that most businessmen remain indifferent to the need for vocational education.

“For a long time, young people have not been educated with the aim of providing them an effective job in the global market. Thus everyone eyes opportunity in the political arena,” said Altan, noting that as vocational education is developed, the flow of international capital to the country will accelerate, which will help to overcome the country's unemployment problem.

Ağah Kafkas, deputy from Çorum for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), put the blame on obsolete bureaucratic obstacles, which he identified as “ideological blindness,” underlining that the government is committed to overcoming problems which have occupied the agenda for years simply due to an authority gap. As he noted that the unemployment problem could only be solved by rational policies, Kafkas, also previously a member of an employees union, said some past “mistakes,” such as the system of using a lower coefficient to calculate the scores of graduates of vocational high schools on Turkey's university admissions exam, which blocked vocational school graduates' -- including those from religious imam-hatip high schools -- entry to universities, have dealt a fatal blow to vocational education in general. “The industrial and service sectors have encountered great difficulty in meeting their need for qualified employees due to such obstacles.”

“Through the Turkish Employment Organization [İŞKUR], we are collecting information on the labor needs of employers,” said Kafkas, adding that some of the demands of businessmen have been addressed with vocational courses offered by some municipalities. He also noted that employment councils, which were established in every city, are actively working to reach a solution to the unemployment problem.

Praising a recent decision by the Higher Education Council (YÖK), which abolished the coefficient restrictions for graduates of vocational high schools in the university entrance examination, Kafkas noted that with this latest step observers expect to see an increase in applications for vocational high schools, which had suffered from a lack of interest by students.

Özcan Karabulut, an education expert from the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş), says the state of Turkey's working children was as drastic as the state of its unemployed youth. “The education system does not meet the demand for specialization in a profession because we don't have enough vocational schools. In developed countries, the ratio of vocational schools to regular high schools is 70 to 30. We have the exact opposite. We can't help our young people learn a profession, and we can't protect our children who work. The workload on their shoulders and the harassment they have to deal with paint a tragic picture,” he said.

Karabulut also highlighted that EU projects emphasize the importance of vocational training. He also said that as a workers' union, they shared with employers the view that education projects should place more emphasis on vocational training. He also marked families' failure to create awareness in their children to prepare for the future. “Children don't make choices for their education in line with their skills and interests. There is a problem with what the student and the family expect from education, and also in how families guide their children.”

He said in the case of child workers, the situation was even worse: “They can't enjoy their childhood like they should, and they are exposed to danger at every second. This is not mentioned frequently, but there is an increase in the number of sexual harassment cases reported in workplaces where children work. They are also often forced to work long hours.”

While the government is currently studying initiatives to encourage vocational education in Turkey, some local administrations and civil society organizations are cooperating with related departments at nearby universities to provide vocational training sessions for residents.

Past misguided policies impede unemployment solutions

Kafkas criticized the policy of universities and YÖK in opening new university departments and said: “When the departments of medicine are unable to meet the country's need for doctors and there is an excess number of graduates from the agricultural engineering departments, we should reform the correct relationship between education and employment. We should also free ourselves from ideological orientations; then we can step along the path of the ultimate solution.”

He stressed that the AK Party government is working on providing new job opportunities for the Turkish people. Agreeing with Altan on the EU accession process' contribution to a solution to the unemployment problem, Kafkas emphasized that the unemployment problem will be on the nation's agenda for some time more since previous governments did not exert enough effort to produce long-term employment solutions.