Turkey has potential to become international student nexus

The situation is bad; the number of foreign students coming to study in Turkey the last school year was lower than the same figure 10 years ago. While in the 1998-99 school year 18,350 international students studied at Turkish universities, this figure was only 18,158 in 2008-09. This is in addition to a problem of filling all the available university spots in the country. At the beginning of the present school year, 103,000 spots at state and private schools remain unfilled. Sunday’s Zaman spoke with the rectors of three Turkish universities to discuss their recommendations with regards to increasing international enrollment at Turkish schools.

Dr. Yunus Söylet, the rector of İstanbul University, says Turkey and his university in particular entered the game late in terms of reaching out to international students. “We have to market our brand better both at home and abroad. Bearing globalization in mind and the amazing developments in communication technologies, we have to use distance education and foreign-based campuses to reach out,” he said, adding that in addition to English-language education, which he calls the first and best method of teaching in the world, education in other languages should also be a priority, to reach out to those in Turkic, Balkan and Arab countries.

Ankara University Rector Dr. Cemal Taluğ expanded on these concerns, saying: “With its culture and history, Turkey deserves to be one of the leading nations accepting foreign students. Our first problem is the lack of sufficient marketing, and the second is the lack of sufficient infrastructure to support international students at many universities.” The other major problem, Taluğ said, was the bureaucratic difficulty in admitting and enrolling foreign students. “It must be made easier for international students to enter, and universities have to be able to operate more flexibly in this regard. We must attract many more students for master’s and doctoral programs, and we should even be drawing some with scholarships.”

Still, Turkey has the potential, and it’s not too late to capitalize upon it, the academics say. “I believe from the bottom of my heart that Turkey will become one of the global leaders in attracting international students. Culturally speaking foreign students will be comfortable here; they’ll be greeted by hospitality in the streets,” Taluğ asserted.

Dr. Reşit Özkanca, the rector at the recently established Melikşah University, says that likewise, his institution believes that Turkey can become a leader in international higher education. His university will apply to the Higher Education Board (YÖK) for permission to enroll international students next year, he says. “Next year we want to take in students from across Africa and Asia, from Pakistan, the Middle East and the Balkans. We want to achieve an international status for our university, and we’ll do so through cooperation with universities and schools abroad. We’ll provide Turkish and English education to those who want it, and we’re also considering implementing special discounts for successful students with strong references who studied at Turkish schools [for their pre-university education] and won medals in international competitions,” Özkanca said. He noted that their aim in attracting foreign students was not to make money but to increase brotherhood between Turkey and other nations. “Turkey is a great world nation,” he said. “As much as is in its power Melikşah University wants to contribute to this.”

Currently, most international students studying in Turkey come from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) and Azerbaijan, followed by Bulgaria, Turkmenistan, Iran and Mongolia. Most of the students from the 127 nations that sent students to Turkey this year enroll at İstanbul University, followed by Ege University, Fatih University, Gazi University and Hacettepe University.

YÖK planning to take action to increase foreign enrollment

YÖK is aware of and working on the procedural problems stemming international enrollment at Turkish universities, YÖK head Dr. Yusuf Ziya Özcan told Sunday’s Zaman. According to him, as part of a package of improvements the institution is working on, YÖK plans in the future to accept exams from different countries that are the native equivalent of the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS) instead of requiring that all incoming international students take the Foreign Student Examination (YÖS). “We’ve been working on the YÖS problem for some time. Either we’re going to develop a new YÖS system that will eradicate these issues, or if there’s a better alternative we’ll get rid of it altogether,” he added.