A TÜSİAD Delegation visits Governor of Higher Education Board YÖK, Çetinsaya in Ankara

 

Following the visit Boyner made a statement to the press saying, “Turkey has ambitious goals for 2023 and strives to join the ten largest economies of the world; however we have reports which clearly demonstrate that Turkey’s labour force and education fail short of meeting these goals for the next decade.” Boyner stressed the importance of the Higher Education Board and its structures and continued, “There is a 2008 report by TÜSİAD which takes a close look at higher education in the country. We have the desire to build on the Report on Higher Education. Today, we had the opportunity to reflect on some of the elements found in the report with Governor Çetinsaya. The ideal situation would be to grant constitutional autonomy to universities in the country; which afterall work to deliver scientific research. We must adress requirements in education, efficiency, need for quality improvement as well as the mismatch and shortages  in the skills of the workforce; hence the need to enhance the country’s comtetitiveness. We believe universities must operate under higher standards of independence, autonomy and flexibility. We would like to see the Board of Higher Education working to create coordination between the government and universities which are independent and autonomous.
 

The delegation accompanying Ümit Boyner included Mehmet Ali Aydınlar, Member of the Board of Directors and President of the Social Affairs Committee, Enver Yücel, Chair of TÜSİAD’s Education Working Group, Ebru Dicle, Deputy Secretary General at TÜSİAD, Eray Akdağ, TÜSİAD’s Ankara Representative and Deniz Gürel , Senior Specialist at the Department of Social Policy Research.

The  delegation included the Chancellor of TED University, Prof. Öktem Vardar, Phd, Prof. Gülsüm Sağlamer, Phd, faculty member at Istanbul Technical University and Prof. Erdal Emel, Phd, who teaches at Uludağ University all of whom helped to coordinate the report titled “Higher Education in Turkey: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities” commissioned by TÜSİAD to the Corporate Assesment Programme at the  European Universities Union, (EUA/IEP).