Republic of turkey

12. STRATEGIC SELECTIONS IN ORDER TO QUICKLY INCREASE THE LABOR FORCE HAVING THE DOCTORATE AND POST DOCTORATE EDUCATION IN TURKEY’S HUMAN RESOURCES

Turkey should quickly increase the quality of its human resources so as to get stronger for competition in the world and to be an effective actor in European Education and Research fields by meeting the needs of the information society. Therefore, it has to increase both the quantity and quality of the labour force possessing doctorate degree. In order to fulfil that, strategic selections should be made in four subjects⁸³. These are;

1. improving the ways so as to increase the number of those having doctorate degree

2. providing the doctorate students with economical assistance so that they can continue their education

3. making some harmonisations to increase the quality of doctorate in the arrangements of doctorate programs

4. improving the ways to have post doctorate study in Turkey or abroad.

• Doctorate degree can be accepted as a gate for being able to be both an academician at a university and an effective participant in international research fields. Turkey’s production in this field is insufficient. It is necessary to increase the number of the doctorate production. In the section where the strategic objectives are determined, around 3.500 doctorate degrees in the years 2005-2010, around 7.400 in the years 2010-2015, around 11.500 in the years 2015-2020, around 17.000 in the years 2020-2025 have been predicted to be given. Because when the decision of accelerating the production in doctorate programs the first results will be obtained after four or five years, the difficulty to achieve these objectives in the first years should be taken into consideration. Instead of trying to train labour force having doctorate degree with such great amounts by using one way, an approach which will help various channels work together should be adopted. To provide variety, foreign channels should be open while domestic channels are being improved. The science and research institutions such as TÜBA, TÜBİTAK should be encouraged to develop doctorate support programs. The activity of the doctorate channels of Ministry of Education and YÖK should be retained. The doctorate channels of the universities should be harmonized again.

• The most important bottleneck while increasing the number of the doctorate degrees is the anxiety of how those continuing their doctorate degree will get the income to subsist during their education right along with the decrease in the attraction of being an academician at a university.

Providing this group (at the age of 25 and older) having their doctorate degree with an income which will help them subsist without depending on their families will increase the demand for continuing a doctorate degree. Generally, there are two ways to provide this income. First one is to provide an employment to the doctorate student during his or her education. Second one is to provide him or her with a scholarship.

The first way in Turkey has improved by employing these students as research assistants. The students obtain their income by participating in an academic life and continue their doctorate degree. This channel should be proceeded by getting rid of the restraints put in recent years. However, this problem cannot be solved only depending on this channel. In addition to that, state doctorate scholarships should be offered. To manage these scholarships, TÜBA, YÖK or an institution founded for this purpose should take the responsibility. In order to select the students who are going to be both a research assistant and take doctorate scholarship according to the competence basis, OSYM should organize an exam like TUS.

• Increasing the number of the labour force having doctorate degree is not an adequate purpose on its own. The key point is to increase the number of qualified doctorate. It cannot be said that the quality of the doctorates is high. Trying to increase the number will cause the anxiety about quality to increase more. Consequently, while increasing the number of doctorates, new harmonisations should be made so as to simultaneously increase the quality of the doctorates. To achieve satisfactory results from a doctorate study, the doctorate students should be provided with sufficient number of courses which will help them conduct a meaningful research; the questions which are admitted as meaningful in academic environment and society should be formulized; doctorate students should be supervised by the tutors who have enough time and adequate cumulative knowledge about their research topic. Today, it is impossible to remark that these conditions are fulfilled in all of the doctorate programs in Turkey. The first thing to do in order to fulfil these conditions is to increase the number of the students and instructors in the doctorate programs. If the adequate number of students is achieved, several graduate courses which are not offered normally will be offered. If there is adequate number of tutors, it is certain that the graduate courses offered will gain a variety desired. Even our most developed universities have many difficulties to attain this sufficient number in courses and instructor. Under these circumstances, the first solution that comes to our mind is to establish a consortium between universities for graduate study and to offer masters and doctorate degree courses jointly. So some unified doctorate programs which can be directly applied should be created for the students who want to have their graduate degree with this cooperation among universities. This can be easily fulfilled in the cities where there are many universities. The other universities can make use of the consortiums among the universities in the same region or they can help their students take graduate courses with adequate variety and qualifications by developing student exchange programs. Thus it becomes a great opportunity to make at least two-year course schedules rich with modern content and scope and to help the students who are about to write their dissertation start their research with a greater activity. In order to establish these kinds of networks, we can benefit from Graduiertenkolleg model that is used in Germany. In these consortiums, by creating integrity, certain number of masters and doctorate studies are designed together and are financially supported. Graduiertenkolleg model can also be thought to be a useful model for providing a critical concentration which is necessary for the emergence of an effective and creative atmosphere for a research. When it is thought that the employment period and personnel policies at the universities in Turkey are not appropriate for such concentrations, the significance of these models becomes clearer.

The sufficiency of the consortiums and units which are given the authority to open doctorate programs should be assessed by the help of the national and international accreditation procedures. These assessments should be taken into consideration while distributing the public resources to the doctorate programs. So as to decrease the anxiety about the quality, the comprehensive examinations can be administered centrally.

In the figure 17, it is clear that the publications from Turkey have increased in recent years, but the number of the doctorates has not increased. Under this different progress tendency, there is a financial encouragement of the publications abroad, whereas the success of the tutors supervising the doctorate studies is not encouraged. So as to strengthen the tendencies to supervise doctorates, encouragements should be improved for the supervisor instructors.

Today, the need for labour force having doctorate degree is not only in academic world. The business world also needs human resource with doctorate degree. In some countries, new doctorate channels compatible for the need of this sector are started to be organized. Turkey has also begun following these developments.

• It is also necessary to use the doctorate facilities in abroad in order to attain human resources with doctorate degree at the aimed number. Today, there is an increase in the numbers of masters and doctorate students internationally in the world and it gained importance as a desired improvement. In the recent years, another development about this matter is the increase of the joint doctorate programs among the countries. When the deficiency of today’s system and the developments in the world are taken into consideration, there emerges a necessity to encourage the student mobility in Turkey and in abroad so that sufficient number of qualified academic personnel can be trained. The students who are going to have their masters and doctorate degrees in abroad should get information from YÖK so that they do have no problems while demanding diploma equivalence. If these students go abroad with financial support of the state, an advisor should follow the academic progress of the candidate at distance.

• There are several different disadvantages of having a doctorate degree in Turkey in comparison with having a doctorate degree in abroad. For instance, there is an obligation to make a study for master’s thesis and difference in the duration of the military service provides those having a graduate study in abroad with an occupational advantage. While a student having his doctorate study in abroad can complete his military service on a summer holiday in a short period of time within the framework of current adjustments, the student having his doctorate degree in Turkey should complete this service in the normal duration. Shortening the duration of the military service for those having their doctorate in Turkey or employing them at the universities in certain part of this service will be an encouragement for completing the doctorate degree in Turkey and decrease the disadvantages in question partially.

• Doctorate degree is an important outset for entering the academic life completely. However, the post doctorate studies have critically great importance in order to make his or her doctorate success internationally known, taking place among the international academicians by improving his or her contacts. Unfortunately, in Turkey post doctorate education is a very important period which is ignored in scientist training process. It is a great mistake to suppose that the training process of a scientist finishes with the doctorate study. A post doctorate study following the doctorate period should be made in a different place and subject from the doctorate and should be planned as its six months or one year period will take place in abroad. The fact that this period is completed in another place will broaden their horizons, get more mature and gain a competence of mobility. Besides, this will also be an effective operation for the prevention of the interior construction of the institutions.