Republic of turkey

5. STRATEGIC CHOICES ABOUT IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF THE VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOLS

Vocational High Schools have a proportion of 30% in Turkey’s higher education system and they will have a similar importance in the future, too. And these schools have an essential role for educating this kind of labour force which has importance in terms of the efficiency and compatibility of Turkey’s economy. Up to now, Turkey’s efforts about vocational high schools have not produced a clear and decided policy. For this reason, vocational high schools have always had the secondary position in the higher education system. As a result, they have not been able to attract enough students or university academic staff. This cannot go on like this as using such a labour force ineffectively cannot be accepted. A functional program concerning the vocational high schools has to be developed and implemented. In order to develop such a program, a Vocational High Schools Unit must be founded within YÖK. This unit could have the responsibility to develop vision among the vocational high schools, providing coordination, communication, student and university academic staff exchange programs and cooperation and minimum standards and quality assurance. Strategic choices that such a program is to realize could be classified into six groups.

1. To increase the esteem of the vocational high schools among the students and the university academic staff; by this way to increase the motivation of the students and the university academic staff at these schools,

2. To make the vocational high schools embedded into the local job and recruitment market,

3. To make the vocational high schools establish a governance system in line with their goals,

4. To direct more motivated and better educated students to vocational high schools,

5.To establish a satisfying career path for the devoted and enthusiastic educators within the vocational high schools,

6. To provide enough equipments for Vocational Schools and rearrange their distribution.

• Changing the perception that the vocational schools have a secondary position could be done through multi directional efforts. The first condition of this is to produce effective policies for these institutions with the contributions of Turkey’s public, business world and social shareholders and through this, to increase the motivation of the employees working in these institutions.

It is inadequate to consider that the things to be done to increase the esteem of these institutions are only limited with the changes to be made within the education institutions. It is necessary to analyse this issue in a broad perspective. The improvements involving the vocational high schools are meaningful only when they are embedded into the rearrangements concerning the labour market. For example, in the case of establishing a National Occupational Standards Institution in Turkey, it will be easier to establish relationships between labour market and the qualities necessary to match the education provided at vocational high schools. So, both the vocational high school graduates can find a job more easily and have higher income and these schools will gain respect. Likewise, relating the vocational high schools with the recruitment action plans and providing the students with not only skills related to the jobs but also entrepreneurial skills will attract more attention to the vocational high schools. Again in this respect, vocational high schools can undertake important responsibilities in terms of developing the lifelong learning strategies which are required by the EU alignment process. In order for the vocational high schools to gain respect in the social labour division, these schools’ being active participants in Turkey’s Education Field will contribute a lot. For example, EU’s Leonardo da Vinci programs will be very useful for the vocational high schools. In the same respect, while establishing quality assessment and quality assurance systems in higher education in Turkey, establishing a system within vocational high schools should not be ignored. Emphasising only the future arrangements to increase the mood of the vocational high school members may not be sufficient. It is also necessary to make the present success level the vocational high schools visible in the society. For example, today, the amount of unemployment among the graduates of these schools is lower than before. It will be beneficial to announce this information to bigger populations. This kind of achievement will lead the students to take this into consideration while choosing their role models.

• While trying to increase the success rates of vocational high schools, it is necessary to keep in mind that these schools are academic institutions which have been founded in order to provide well-educated the labour force. These schools should be embedded in the local market. In order to actualize this; it will be beneficial to develop vocational high schools’ lifelong learning functions.

• When embedding in the local markets, participation of the local business, non-governmental organizations and other related authorities in the governance system of the vocational high schools and these schools’ rearrangement of the program according to their own governance system could be considered. As another way, in order to increase the sensitivity of the vocational high schools to local demands, some protocols with the business world could be organized.

• Thinking that the public image of the vocational high schools needs to be improved, it will be useful for the vocational high schools to remain within the universities, but to make new arrangements in terms of governance. In this respect, they should have representatives in the University Administrative Board and a permanent commission which handles vocational and technical education problems could be founded in the Inter-university Board. In addition, industry and business world representatives should take part in this governance system through their counselling commissions.

Nowadays, the place of vocational high schools in the universities is considered as a faculty. This creates different kinds of problems in the development of vocational high schools. Directors of vocational high schools are promoted by academicians who are not directly related to this subject. In these promotions, general academic criteria are more dominant than the criteria which can be meaningful for the vocational high schools and the teaching staff of the Vocational high schools is expected to follow a career line for the teaching staff. This attitude distress teaching staff however the ones who perform these conditions leave vocational high schools in the first place and try to transfer to the faculties of the universities. In addition to the problems stated above, vocational high schools have problems in getting enough shares from the university budget because of their present position.

Vocational high schools should be present within the borders of the universities; however their autonomy in the universities should be increased. The mission and ethos of vocational high schools include differences compared to other parts of the universities. For this, a different kind of governance should be improved which can support the attendance of locals and accountability to outside. In the selection of managers, being a suitable leader for the mission of vocational high schools should be considered when compared to academic criteria. According to the law no. 5018, enough sources ought to be allocated in the budgets by considering the number of the students, differences in the performance of vocational high schools and restructuring programme of the coming vocational high schools. Again according to the law 5018, if it is considered that vocational high schools directors are given the responsibility of mandatory of payment, vocational high schools administrations can be expected to feel relieved in terms of finance as a result of these applications.

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  One of the most important factors in increasing the success of the vocational high schools will be raising the efficiency of the students joining this system. Entrance system of the present vocational high schools is not able to perform this. There is a conflict that free entrance without OSS decreases the quality of education among vocational high school directors. There can be various solutions to this problem. One of them can be giving level assessment tests to the students who come with free entrance and making the students who are inefficient, responsible for training education to support their weaknesses. Second solution can be organizing an exam for the students who are about to graduate from vocational schools. In this situation the student will get the direct entrance right after succeeding in the high school graduation exam. In both of the solutions, the students will start to follow the programmes of vocational high schools in a most educated way when compared to present situation.
  
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  According to the ideas of some people, another way to change the image of these schools which have the image of places ‘where the students come unwillingly’ is students’ realizing the fact that they can attend other higher institutions when they succeed in vocational high schools. The functions of the present ways should be increased and public should be informed about the availability of this opportunity.
  
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  In order for the education in vocational high schools to reach success, while decreasing the student university academician proportion, the competency of the university academicians related to the vocational high schools should be increased. Decreasing the proportion of student university academician proportion from 57 to 24 in 20 years is among the goals of this strategy. University deans to be recruited at vocational high schools should have industrial experience and no worries concerning academic career. Their income levels should be the same with other university academicians after the same working years, but they should be provided with the opportunity to have a different career path. Administrative levels of the vocational high schools should be related with this new career path.
  

At Vocational schools, which are expected to be one of the institutions where the aim of life long learning is actively applied, studies on effective use of multi-media technologies and distance learning system, method, technology and techniques should be conducted.