Republic of turkey

2. FOUR DIFFERENT LOGICS WHICH MUST BE KEPT IN MIND DURING THE DETERMINATION OF THE STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION

If a higher education system is restructured and newly directed, first of all it must be clarified according to which logic this structuring will be done. The structuring of a complex institutional structure, like the higher education system which has a central importance in the influence of future of a country cannot be renovated with a logic having only one objective to be fulfilled. Because of this, regarding the problem of restructuring of this institution, it would be right to deal with it by surrounding it with a different logic. Such a surrounding can be done by using 4 different structuring logics.

1. 
   Approaching higher education with the thought of providing a public service
   

Nowadays, in the whole world, education is being regarded as one of the main responsibilities of the state. Education services are mostly provided by the states. But education, because of its particularity, also provides that it can be offered privately. Therefore, in addition to the state which offers education, it is also offered privately. But also this private service is being structured by the state and has the particularity to be a private offer of a public service.

The offer of education as a public service, moreover than its particularity, is being done because of its critical importance from the public point of view. With a private offer, an education sufficient in number and quality for the public cannot be assured. Provision of this service to the public at a sufficient level by the state still keeps its importance.

The most important reason for the state to have gained such a role in education is the thought which humanity gained nowadays in the field of human rights. There is a two-fold relationship between education and human rights. Besides the fact that education is a human right, the realization of other human rights mainly depends on a sufficient academic system given.

While Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines the objectives of education, it departs from the thought of an individual who realizes itself independently and the thought of a peaceful society. For this reason, in the second paragraph of this article it is stressed that on the one hand education has to focus exactly on the development of the character of the individual and on the other hand, by insisting on human rights, the development of the respect for principle freedoms by fostering the tolerance and friendship between nations, ethnic and religious groups and thereby the contribution to the continuation of peace is being pointed out.

In order that such an individual and such a nation can be created, according to the first paragraph of Article 26, everybody must be entitled to the right for education. Elementary education shall be compulsory and free of charge. But the humans right to education is not only limited with elementary education. In order that the individuals can realize their dignified right of life within the society, it is necessary that they earn their living by using their knowledge and skills they gained by vocational and technical education as well as higher education. In order that the humans can earn their living, the responsibility of the state regarding the necessary vocational and higher education is to ensure the existence of such kinds of academic services and to guarantee equality regarding the access to these services of those ones having the necessary qualifications.

These principles arising in the field of human rights also became principles of the constitutions of the states by time. Human rights and constitutional principles necessitate that academic services are provided as public good. But this is not the only reason why education is provided as a public service. In order to ensure the functioning of economic and social systems of societies, skilled labour is necessary. The external reasons regarding the provision of this service make the providing economically of tit provided as a public service.

Whether in respect of human rights, or because of economical reasons, if higher education is being approached as a public service production, for structuring and providing types to be developed in this field, also an analysis method is being provided. The demography of the country, the economic and social particularities are providing a needs / demands framework of higher education. For those who want to do planning and restructuring in the fields of education, these are provided from outside. In this case, the planning of higher education is limited to a great extent by the planning of provision and cost activities.

2. 
   Approaching Higher Education with a Progressive and Investing Logic
   

Besides that higher education can be approached as a field of service production which must be fulfilled, it can also be approached as a field of investment of which the output is increased with right interventions. Nowadays, the occurrence of two capacities which mainly determine the level of development of a society is closely connected competencies of higher education systems. The first one is human resources. The more a country could create developed human resources, the more its chances rise to adjust to the transformations in the world and to make use of chances as well as to accelerate its development. The second one is the development of its progressive capacities in the fields of science and technology as well as organization. A country, by investing to the higher education system, will develop and prosper to the extent that the capacities in these fields will rise. In other words, higher education can also be planned as a useful field of investment for a country.

If higher education is approached by such an idea in mind, in the centre of decisions to be taken regarding higher education, there will be the question of how much investment will be done in this field. This decision can be taken by the comparison of the outputs of marginal investments done in this field and the outputs of marginal investments done in other fields. Of course, in order to determine the output which can be used for such a comparison and on the other hand in order to particularize this investment strategy, there must be institutional frameworks agreed beforehand. Generally, the political decision makers state that they are aware of the importance of higher education within the framework of knowledge economy of a country. But they are reluctant in terms of making investments in order to develop this value, and they are not creating funds which will act with this investment thought⁸¹.

3. 
   Approaching Higher Education by Developing the Thought of Citizenship and Ensuring the Social Coherence
   

It is not right to assume that the thought of citizenship of an individual will develop during the elementary education and that the importance of this will decrease very much in the level of higher education. The history of universities show that, especially in countries where the industrialization started late, during the formation of nation state universities have played a great role regarding the establishment of the citizenship understanding. Within the framework of the appeared nationalist ideology formed by the world and relationships of that period, it importance has been given to the establishment of a mainstream thought of identity and citizenship.

Nowadays, in order to assure that a society keeps its healthy functioning, the importance of the development and maturation of the thought of citizenship still keeps its importance. On one hand as human rights became a universal value and on the other hand as global societies developed in the world, differently from the past, a thought of identity and citizenship has appeared which need much more effort to be developed but is more compatible with human dignity.

The duty the Declaration of Human Rights placed on education and the free and full development of the personality of an individual has stopped the path of the development of the thought of citizenship which is programmed according to objectives given externally. The individual will create this in relationship with the cultural environment in which he/she lives, during the education and as a part of his/her life. This identity will not be given to the citizen externally; instead it will be determined as a part of his/her life of which he/she is aware. Such a thought of citizenship, while including the universal elements of the thought of human rights, will also have the special features which result from the particularities of the culture in which the individual lives.

In a society formed by citizens having these competencies the individuals will, by respecting differences, establish relationships by being open to learn and do cooperation without trying to make the others otherwise. In such a society the entirety and solidarity will not arise from monotony but from the ability to do cooperation within the differentiation. The expectation from citizens in such a society is not passive obedience, but being in creative activity and to create strong reasons for solidarity within the society.

In such a society which is formed by citizens having such democratic tendencies and where the instincts for activity are not dulled, it is being expected that two important outcomes will arise. The first one is the development of the capacity to have cooperation in the society that means the acceleration of the formation of social capital. The second one is the creation of a suitable basis for the development of participating democracy within such a society of active citizens.

The university of this model, while facilitating the formation of citizens adjustable to the democratic thought of today’s world, also has to be fair. This is on the one hand the natural necessity of the democratic thought it has, and on the other hand the necessity so that the functioning of solidarity within society can develop. This system must have particularities which ensure the equality of opportunity and leaving all evaluations outside of the system which are not based on merit. Such an approach will allow the university within the society it is established to leave the vertical mobility channels open and will avoid the accumulation of social tension.

By approaching the higher education system with the logic of the development and maturation of such a thought of citizenship, this will allow to find answers to questions which could not be responded within the two other logics. There will be answers such logic will bring into determined subjects related to the content of education. But more important than this are the new approaches it will bring to the management of education. Within this scope, there will be no possibilities left to defend behavioural educational approaches; these ones have to leave their place to structural education approaches.

4. 
   To approach Higher Education by the Logic of Preserving and Maintaining the Special Culture Resulting From the History of the University
   

The university being the basic element of the higher education system is an institution having a 900 years long history. Nonetheless the fact that this institution has experienced important transformations parallel to the change of societies, it has preserved some important features during its long existence. These universities have created special cultural micro cosmoses within their societies. They have created a lively space where fluency, clarity, grace, generosity and tolerance is dominant. Nowadays, within the transformation universities experience, the passage from elitist education to mass education, the critics post-modernism brought to the fields of science, the fact that the university takes a greater space from day to day within the market progression and that the borders it has with society started to eradicate and similar developments are leading to the situation that the particularity the university has possessed during its history to be different institution is not being taken into account. The university, by loosing its particularity to be a different place and by melting within the society, we must be aware that this will be an important loss. The university must be developed within the scope of new scientific approaches and new economic relations by producing and developing its special culture bearing universal claims, a new logic which cannot be bared by other logics is being formed during the new structuring of the universities.

Creativity and inventions, the perception of dangers awaiting mankind and threats which can be encountered at the national level can only be realized in free spaces eradicated from all kinds of fanaticism. Such a university will create a micro cosmos where communicational tolerance exists, which can remain sensitive towards the problems of society, which has the capacity to form an epistemological community, where capacities of critical thought are not filed, freedom is promoted, calmness is maintained and style and grace is not lost.

This logic will show the path much more than the others for how the internal and external relations of the university must be established. It must not be forgotten that ‘the cultural particularities of the university being an institution’ is one of the cultural heritages which must be safeguarded by humanity. As a matter of fact this particularity of the university, although very late, has been accepted by the European Council⁸².

For designing a higher education system, it cannot be right that only one logic is dominant. During the structuring and planning each of these logics will be effective from different points of view. When it is observed carefully, it becomes immediately clear that there exists a certain job sharing between these logics and that they can be used while designing a higher education system as elements completing and restricting each other.