Rectors split on benefits of choice
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by İzgi Güngör
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 03, 2009 00:00
ANKARA - Some college presidents say the transfer system employed by Sabancı University is unfair, while others deem efforts by the Higher Education Board to create a prototypical university detrimental. Sabancı University allows students to change courses after the first year
As a dispute over allowing student transfers from one department to another continues between Turkey’s Higher Education Board, or YÖK, and Sabancı University, college rectors from around the country were split over the issue.
The private Sabancı University in Istanbul applies a relatively flexible educational system that allows its students to change their focus at the end of their first year in line with their success or satisfaction with the subject they initially chose.
Different from other universities’ systems, students select one of the school’s three existing faculties, not an individual department, when making their preferences before entering Sabancı University based on their exam results in the University Entrance Exam, or ÖSS.
Sabancı University, like state universities, accepts students based on their exam achievements in the ÖSS. It then gives a basic development program offering common general courses, including social and natural sciences, mathematics and English to all its first-year students regardless of their vocational faculty preferences. The students make their choice after this program; if students come to the conclusion that they are more inclined to another department or vocational subject, they can change their department or faculty at the end of their first or second year.
YÖK wants the university to end the system, which it has applied for 10 years, saying that it creates inequality among students because a student who receives a lower score on the ÖSS can move to a department that requires a high score on the ÖSS exam.
Besides Sabancı University, Istanbul’s private Işık University and Okan University also offer a basic development program for first-year students and allow them to change their educational subjects.
For Sabancı University President Tosun Terzioğlu, the system implies diversity and offers diverse opportunities to students. "[In Turkey,] an engineer doesn’t understand social sciences and a sociologist likewise doesn’t understand natural sciences," Terzioğlu said. "We don’t want to cultivate such graduates."
Ural Akbulut, the former president of Middle East Technical University, or ODTÜ, said the system is applied in U.S. universities, but that the circumstances in Turkey are different.
"Students should receive an education in line with their capacity. It is not just for a student who has received lower points in the exam to be sent to a department that he doesn’t deserve," Akbulut told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
"At ODTÜ, for instance, you have to be among the very smallest group in the exam to study electronics. But imagine if a student who receives a relatively lower score and is supposed to study sociology is sent to study electronics under this system at Sabancı University. This implementation is not fair and is against the Constitution."
Akbulut said the application of the system at state universities was unacceptable and that it was neither legal nor just for a certain group of students studying at these universities to be granted such a right.
"If such a system is applied in state universities, an investigation is launched against that university’s president," he said. "The system is applied in U.S. universities, but there is not such a harsh race among students to enter university there. There are many universities in the U.S., and students can enter easily. The system is thus not adaptable to Turkey, where university entrance is already challenging and the gap between demand and supply is pretty large."
’YÖK aims to create prototypical university’
Former Ankara University President Nusret Aras said the system could be applied in Turkey, but unlike in the U.S. and Europe, there were many challenges facing students who want to enter university in Turkey.
"These types of changes should be based on strict rules. What happens if students want to prefer some specific departments? These should be well-assessed," Aras told the Daily News.
Current Ankara University President Cemal Taluğ said it was not right for YÖK to create a prototypical university in a country where many different schools exist and that it is the university itself that should make its decision on the issue.
Işık University President Ekrem Ekinci said they allowed student transfer only within the same faculty and that such a system provided students with a chance to make their choices more consciously and free from exam stress. YÖK sent a letter to the university in May demanding the system be abandoned.
Ekinci said YÖK’s system disregards the students.
The private Sabancı University in Istanbul applies a relatively flexible educational system that allows its students to change their focus at the end of their first year in line with their success or satisfaction with the subject they initially chose.
Different from other universities’ systems, students select one of the school’s three existing faculties, not an individual department, when making their preferences before entering Sabancı University based on their exam results in the University Entrance Exam, or ÖSS.
Sabancı University, like state universities, accepts students based on their exam achievements in the ÖSS. It then gives a basic development program offering common general courses, including social and natural sciences, mathematics and English to all its first-year students regardless of their vocational faculty preferences. The students make their choice after this program; if students come to the conclusion that they are more inclined to another department or vocational subject, they can change their department or faculty at the end of their first or second year.
YÖK wants the university to end the system, which it has applied for 10 years, saying that it creates inequality among students because a student who receives a lower score on the ÖSS can move to a department that requires a high score on the ÖSS exam.
Besides Sabancı University, Istanbul’s private Işık University and Okan University also offer a basic development program for first-year students and allow them to change their educational subjects.
For Sabancı University President Tosun Terzioğlu, the system implies diversity and offers diverse opportunities to students. "[In Turkey,] an engineer doesn’t understand social sciences and a sociologist likewise doesn’t understand natural sciences," Terzioğlu said. "We don’t want to cultivate such graduates."
Ural Akbulut, the former president of Middle East Technical University, or ODTÜ, said the system is applied in U.S. universities, but that the circumstances in Turkey are different.
"Students should receive an education in line with their capacity. It is not just for a student who has received lower points in the exam to be sent to a department that he doesn’t deserve," Akbulut told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
"At ODTÜ, for instance, you have to be among the very smallest group in the exam to study electronics. But imagine if a student who receives a relatively lower score and is supposed to study sociology is sent to study electronics under this system at Sabancı University. This implementation is not fair and is against the Constitution."
Akbulut said the application of the system at state universities was unacceptable and that it was neither legal nor just for a certain group of students studying at these universities to be granted such a right.
"If such a system is applied in state universities, an investigation is launched against that university’s president," he said. "The system is applied in U.S. universities, but there is not such a harsh race among students to enter university there. There are many universities in the U.S., and students can enter easily. The system is thus not adaptable to Turkey, where university entrance is already challenging and the gap between demand and supply is pretty large."
’YÖK aims to create prototypical university’
Former Ankara University President Nusret Aras said the system could be applied in Turkey, but unlike in the U.S. and Europe, there were many challenges facing students who want to enter university in Turkey.
"These types of changes should be based on strict rules. What happens if students want to prefer some specific departments? These should be well-assessed," Aras told the Daily News.
Current Ankara University President Cemal Taluğ said it was not right for YÖK to create a prototypical university in a country where many different schools exist and that it is the university itself that should make its decision on the issue.
Işık University President Ekrem Ekinci said they allowed student transfer only within the same faculty and that such a system provided students with a chance to make their choices more consciously and free from exam stress. YÖK sent a letter to the university in May demanding the system be abandoned.
Ekinci said YÖK’s system disregards the students.