Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, in his speech, stated that special emphasis should be placed on combining theoretical education with practical training, “We must promote joint education programs in our universities.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu pointed out the importance of education and said that the share of higher education cannot be denied in acquiring a profession, skills and in creating a vision for the future. Reporting that there are 5 Turkish universities in the first 500 universities in the world, indicating that 3 of them are foundation universities, Hisarcıklıoğlu said:

“In terms of academic competitiveness in higher education, we pay particular attention to foundation universities. Foundation universities decrease inequality in education and offer equal opportunities.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that they favor a reassessment of university quotas according to the needs of the business world and added that, “Because every vacant quota is wastes the resources of our country.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu emphasized that vocational high schools should be renewed in order to train qualified intermediate staff:

“We have to give special attention to combining with practical training to theoretical training. We absolutely need to promote joint training programs at our universities. As academics, students, alumni and business representatives, universities must become open centers for innovation. In order to bring about a richer, more prosperous Turkey, we need more entrepreneurs. Universities are the best platform to ensure this. For that reason, technocities, technoparks, incubation centers and technology transfer offices under universities are very important.”

- Higher Education Council Chairman

Chairman of the Council of Higher Education (HEC, YÖK) Dr. Yekta Sarac, noting that the number of higher education students exceeded 8 million in Turkey, said, “That number is twice that of Germany and we’ve exceeded the number of higher education students in Russia.”

Sarac pointed out that the while, positive aspects for this many higher education students are apparent, without proper direction, it can have detrimental effects.

Stating that approximately 19% of the total quotas in higher education institutions are fulfilled by foundation universities, Sarac said, “Of these, 20% are registered in associate programs while the rest are undergraduate programs.”

Regarding the supervision of foundation higher education institutions, Saraç said, “There may be a special law, but in any case, foundation higher education institutions should be audited financially, just as YÖK is supervised.

Yekta Sarac said, “Our students have become selective, making conscious choices. This is gratifying. This is the first point which will be instrumental in increasing quality.”

The meeting continued on closed to the press; representatives of the foundation universities presented their assessments on the higher education system to the Higher Education Council Chairman.