Republic of turkey

3. HOW DO THE EXPECTATIONS OF TURKEY FROM HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM DEVELOP

It can be said that there are three elements that determine expectations of Turkey from higher education in the following years. They can be listed as;

• 
  The changes in distribution of age groups of the population of Turkey in a demographic transition process,
  
• 
  The functions Turkey will have to assign to higher education in order to close development gap with developed countries,
  
• 
  Developments in higher education demand of Turkish population that cannot be grounded instrumentally.
  

Changes in Demographic Transition Process and Opportunities Brought by this Process

Like all societies that transit from rural society to industrialized urban society, Turkey is experiencing a demographic transition process. While rough birth rates remain fixed in the first years of this transition, population increase rates rise when rough death rates start to decrease rapidly as a result of improvements in health conditions. After a while, rough birth rates start to decrease and the decrease in rough death rates slow down and as a result of this population increase rate start to decrease. Then, the decrease in rough death rates stops and decreases in population increase rate realize parallel to decreases in rough birth rates. In the final stage, rough birth rates and rough death rates approach to each other, population increase rates reach to zero and population remains stable at a certain level.

Turkey experienced certain stages of this process after the Second World War. Rough birth rate, which was 4.6% between 1945-50, became 4.3% between 1960-65. Whereas, rough death rate, which was 2.7% between 1945-50 decreased to 1.6% between 1960-65 and as a result of this population increase rate per year rose from 1.9% between 1945-50 to 2.7% between 1960-65. Decrease in rough birth rates between 1990-2000 reached up to 2.4%, decrease in rough death rates continued by slowing down and reached to 0.7%, which is its minimum value, and population increase rate decreased up to 1.8%.

Demographic transition process in Turkey still continues. Projections on the next 20 years are given in Table 7.

Table 7. Population Increase Expectations in Turkey

Years	Rough Birth Rate (%)	Rough Death Rate (%)	Population Increase Rate (%)	Total Population (thousand)
2000	22.2	7.1	16.6	67,804
2005	20.1	7.1	14.6	72,843
2010	18.0	7.1	12.3	77,750
2015	17.2	7.1	11.0	82,315
2020	15.8	7.5	9.2	86,478
2025	15.1	7.8	8.1	90,225

Source: Can Fuat Gürlesel: Türkiye’nin Kapısındaki Fırsat, (Opportunity at the Gate of Turkey) Education Reform Initiative, Istanbul, October 2004, page 74

Population of Turkey will continue to increase after 20 years even though it will slow down significantly. It is expected that population of Turkey will stabilize at about 98 million²⁶ in 2050.²⁷

This decrease in increase rate will gradually move Turkey away from being a young population country. As a result of this, the increase in the number of children to be educated will decline and even it will start to decrease. Likewise, the number of children born in one year is currently 1.4 million but it will decrease to 1.3 million in 2025.²⁸ As a result of these developments, qualitative concerns will replace quantitative concerns in education policies in time.

In line with the place of Turkey in demographic process, there will be a significant change in distribution of age groups. While population pyramid had a wide base in the years when demographic transition started, this base will significantly narrow towards the end of demographic transition, it will transform into rectangle in bottom age groups and peaks of the pyramid will significantly widen. Current and expected developments in distribution of age groups of Turkish population are given in Table 8.

Table 8: Development of Turkish Population as of Age Groups, 1950-2025

Years	Population of Turkey	0-14 Age Group		15-46 Age Group		65+ Age Group
		Number (thousand)	%	Number (thousand)	%	Number (thousand)	%
1950	20,947	8,029	38.3	12,227	58.4	691	3.3
1960	27,755	11,447	41.2	15,322	55.2	986	3.6
1970	35,605	14,879	41.8	19,157	53.8	1,569	4.4
1980	44,737	17,434	40.0	25,022	55.9	2,113	4.1
1990	56,473	19,745	35.0	34,266	60.7	2,417	4.3
2000	67,804	20,220	29.8	43,702	64.5	3,882	5.7
2005	72,843	20,614	28.3	47,930	65.8	4,298	5.9
2010	77,750	20,914	26.9	52,014	66.9	4,820	6.2
2015	82,315	20,825	25.3	55,892	67.9	5,597	6.8
2020	86,478	20,408	23.6	59,410	68.7	6,659	7.7
2025	90,225	20,481	22.7	61,804	68.5	7,940	8.8

Source: Population Censuses and VIII th Five-Year Development Plan, Population, Demographic Structure, Report of Data Sources, Analysis and Population Projections Sub-Commissions of Immigration Special Expert Commission, State Planning Organization: 2556 ÖİK: 572 Ankara, State Planning Organization, 2000.

Developments in age groups may be analysed by considering population changes in 0-14, 15-64 and 65+ age categories. As a result of the decreases in fertility rates, the population in 0-14 age group remains rather fixed after 2005. This means that total number of students, who will continue to elementary education will remain fixed and demand for elementary education will not increase due to population increase after 2010. After this date, investments to be made for new elementary education facilities will be directed towards increasing quality and meet the demands arise in new locations due to movement of population from rural areas to cities.

Population in 15-64 age group that is taken as indicator of the population that may work has been increasing both in amount and in rate. 0-14 age group degreased 12% in the last 25 years, whereas 15-64 age group increased 10%. This development has created an opportunity for Turkey. The number of adults in 15-64 age group corresponding to each child in 0-14 age group is given in Table 9.

Table 9. The Number of People at Working Age Per Children in Turkey, 1950-2025

1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2005	2010	2015	2020	2025
1.525	1.340	1.287	1.397	1.734	2.164	2.325	2.487	2.683	2.911	3.018

It is expected that this rate, which had decreased to 1.287 in 1970, will continuously increase and reached 3.018 in 2025. This is very important development. Production per capita in Turkey will increase due to only demographic reasons even if other reasons do not contribute to this increase and as a result of this it will be possible to continuously increase the investment that may be done by Turkey in order to increase education quality of each student. This is an opportunity.

Another result observed in Table 8 is the fact that the old age population in 64+ age group increases continuously. Increase of old age population will require many innovations in social welfare policies of Turkey. If these old people will not be insulated from the society and live as an active member of the society, it should be considered that they may have instrumental and non-instrumental education demand and how to meet these demands. When relative enlargement in both 15-64 and 64+ age group comes together with the requirements created by the transformations in economy, “continuous education” demand in Turkey will increase significantly.

When it is accepted that 0-14 and 64+ age groups are out of economy, it is expected that future investment rate of the country and capacity of the society to develop new projects will increase proportional to decrease in dependence rate obtained by dividing the sum of people in the above age groups with population in 15-64 age group. It is seen that dependence rate in Turkey is contentiously decreasing.

Table 10. Dependence Rates in Turkey, 1950-2025

1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2005	2010	2015	2020	2025
0.712	0.811	0.859	0.789	0.647	0.550	0.519	0.494	0.472	0.456	0.459

After discussing educational opportunities in Turkey brought by the changes in distribution of age groups caused by the path taken by Turkey in demographic transition process, it will be beneficial to make suggestions for higher education age group in 15-64 age group.

The figures given in Table 11 related to development of the population at higher education age and population at higher education entrance age group assume that secondary education is 3 years. In Table 12 the number of vocational schools of higher education is seen as 632. Even though some changes is needed in this table since high school period has been increased to four years, these changes are not very important for us since here we are interested in the number of students that enter in university entrance examination and at bachelor’s degree level. For this reason, the data in Table 11 will be sufficient for this study. According to the data in this table, it is expected that the population that can enter to higher education and the population at higher education age will decrease about 10% in the following twenty years. It can be said that the increase in the number of students to be given to higher education will be caused by economic reasons more that demographic reasons.

Table 11. Population at School Age in Turkey, 2000-2025

(million)

Years	Pre-School 3-5 Years of Age	Elementary Education 6-14 Years of Age	Secondary Education 15-18 Years of Age	Higher Education 19-22 Years of Age	University Entrance 19 Years of Age
2000	4.113	12.208	5.742	5.648	1.428
2005	3.865	12.015	5.425	5.540	1.358
2010	3.902	11.748	5.314	5.328	1.352
2015	3.777	11.543	5.171	5.257	1.347
2020	3.805	11.294	5.124	5.064	1.258
2025	3.655	11.268	4.956	5.077	1.258

Source: Can Fuat Gürlesel: ibid, some changes were made in page 782.

Development Gap in Turkey and Expectations Related to Closing this Gap

Insufficiency of resources allocated for education by Turkey, which experienced a raid population increase and urbanization at the start of demographic transition process has caused lack of sufficient motivation in developing innovating curricula, low level of average education level and a great gap between itself and developed countries in terms of human development and compatibility.

Human development axis is calculated at three dimensions. The first of them is related to health. The second is one is related to knowledge and education. It is measured with schooling rates at the first, second and third levels. The third one is related to living standard. It is Domestic Product calculated according to purchase power parity.

The countries, Human Development Indexes of which are more than 0.8000 are accepted at high human development level. According to data for the year 2003, there are 57 countries in this category. 87 countries, Human Development Index values of which are between 0.500 and 0.800 are in medium human development category. Human Development Index of Turkey was 0.587 in 1975 whereas it rose to 0.750 in 2003. Even though Turkey has taken a certain path in medium human development category, it is still at 94^th rank among 177 countries and governance unit. Positions of the countries around Turkey in this listing are as follows; Bulgaria at 55^th, Macedonia at 59^th, Romania at 64^th, Albania at 72^nd, Armenia at 83^rd, Azerbaijan at 101^st, Syria at 106^th. In the ranking made according to Domestic Product calculated according to purchase power per capita, Turkey is at 76^th position. Turkey is 18 rank lower in the ranking made according to human development index that ranking make according to income.

Since Turkey is relatively at a good position in terms of income, human development gap is significantly caused by insufficiency of the investments in education and health fields. In 1990 2% of GDP was allocated for national education expenditures²⁹ this rate significantly increased in 2002 and 2003 after is increased and decreased for a while. In 2003, 3.84% of GDP was allocated for education as 2.87% was for the Ministry of National of Education and 0.96% for the Board of Higher Education. When it is considered that in OECD countries average about %5.9 of GDP is allocated for education and USD 6,361 per student is spend, it is clear that even the above rates are not sufficient for Turkey.

The fact that efforts of Turkey on education remained insufficient has important reflections on quality of education. For example, in the Third International Mathematics and Science Knowledge Competition in 1999, only 1% of the 8^th grade students could enter in the first 10% section. 65% of students were in the bottom 25% section and Turkey could only become 31^st in Mathematics and 33^rd in Science among 38 countries in scope of the study and its grades were 12% less that average grade.³⁰

This negative picture in the field of education negatively affects the competitiveness of Turkey at international level. According to the results of 2005-2006 Global Competitiveness Report Finland is 1^st among 117 countries, USA is 2^nd, Germany is 15^th, Korea is 17^th, France is 30^th, Tunisia is 40^th, Egypt is 53^rd whereas Turkey is only 66^th.³¹

Turkey has the highest 15^th population in the world. Transformation of its position in demographic transition process to strategic advantage for Turkey depends on increasing participation of population to workforce and increasing education level.

In urbanisation and industrialization process, participation of population in workforce had tended to decrease and decreased from 59.4% in 1990 to 51.5% in 2002. This rate is 69.8% in the EU countries. It is seen that participation of males in workforce in Turkey is close to the EU countries but participation of females (28.5%) is very low compared to the rates in the EU countries (61%).³² Low participation rate of females in workforce is caused by the very low rate in cities (about 19%). Such a low rate of participation in workforce limits contribution of the population of the country to production and thus to development of the country.

It is seen that rates of participation in workforce increase parallel to the increases in education level. For example, 70% of females graduated from a higher education institution were participating in 2002, whereas this rate decreases below 12% in the levels lower than high school level.³³

The number of people in 25-44 age group in Turkey is estimated as 22.4 million in 2005. Education level of this age group is as follows; 6.5% illiterate, 2.6% not graduated from any school, 48.3% graduate of elementary school, 10.8% graduate of junior high school or equivalent, 22.6% graduate of high school or equivalent, 10.2% graduate of university. This profile does not indicate existence of a high capacity human capital.

Education level should be increased in order to both increase the rate of participation in workforce and use workforce efficiently. Since Turkey is in the process of full membership in the EU, Turkey should consider European dimension of education of workforce. Population between 20-44 years of age in working age group in the EU will decrease from 165.2 million to 136.3 million in the EU whereas it will increase from 26.5 million to 33.7 million in Turkey. Only if Turkey can form a well educated workforce that have a high power to create added power it can close this gap even partially.³⁴ Ways that will increase education level of young population should be sought in order to reach to EU standards. In order to take part in the EU actively, Turkey should increase its human capital rapidly in the following 20 years. For this purpose, 20-44 age group can be selected as target and increasing schooling rates at each education level may be targeted in order to increase education level of this age group at desired level in 2025. Schooling rates at each level should be increased in line with this objective.

The results of two scenario studies conducted in order to comprehend results of increasing schooling rates to improve profile of human capital is given in ANNEX (1). These scenarios clearly evidences that the increases in schooling rates effect improvement in profile of workforce capital with a certain time lag. This situation points out that increases in schooling rates should be realized as soon as possible.

For Turkey, it will be insufficient to determine its purposes in education only quantitatively. Transition of Turkey to knowledge society and EU full membership perspective may guide to the determinations that should be done related to quality of education.

Especially advances in information technology among research activities that have intensified in order to overcome the economic crisis started since the second half of 1970s, has carried the world to the process of transition from industry society to knowledge society. With technological advances, mass production approach switched to flexible and simple production, strategic human resources management and total quality management began to be used in a widespread manner. In the world that switched to knowledge society from industry society, the expectations related to human force education manner have been changed. In the EU Lisbon Summit realized in 2000, “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” was determined as objective for Europe.

In the process of transition to knowledge society, full and equal access of everyone in the society to education is needed. Because, in globalized world of knowledge society, economy depends on knowledge and human force with knowledge. In order to be a successful individual in knowledge society, just knowing occupational and technical knowledge at certain level is not sufficient any more. What is expected from this individual is to have a capacity to access and analyse knowledge and to renew it continuously according to his job. Competition in global knowledge society has increased the need for the workforce with multi-skills and lifelong learning capacity. What is expected from an individual in a globalized knowledge society is to take initiative, accept responsibility, open to team work, respect pluralist and free idea and human rights, have art and culture conscious at social and individual level.

In today’s labour markets, flexibility of the training provided in each field is as important as selecting suitable subject at the start of training. Training of workforce on a single field is not sufficient any more and lifelong learning is envisaged for the workforce capable of quickly adopting himself for needs of labour market. With lifelong learning, it becomes possible to not be unemployed during whole of life.

It is difficult to say that Turkish higher education system has realized these characteristics and expectations. This makes successful employment of graduates in labour markets difficult. In this situation, Turkish education system in general and higher education system in particular should be restructured in a flexible, open and strong manner.

Demand for Non-Instrumental Higher Education

When steering of higher education is discussed, generally a harmony is desired between supply of higher education system and demand of market for educated workforce. In short, effectiveness of higher education supply is tried to be solved with an instrumental logic. Of course, there are serious reasons behind dominance of such a myopic criteria in planning of education. Higher education is an expensive service; its supply cannot meet the demand in the country. In this situation it is very difficult to get rid of limiting logic of instrumental rationalism.

However, in another point of view insufficiency of considering the demand for higher education just in terms of demand of the market for workforce can be easily comprehended and a logic that is very different than the above one may be suggested. People may demand higher education to take part in the society with a more enriched cultural background and gain reputation. People may demand education not for learning an occupation but to realize their own life project. It can easily be claimed that education right defined in the Declaration of Human Rights makes such a demand legitimate. What can be objected here is to provide such a demand free of charge. If beneficiaries of this service pay for it, finding a reason not for producing this service becomes difficult. In this case, not producing this service will be a limitation on right of humans for a self-respecting life.

When cost of such a demand for higher education is paid, it is difficult to claim that supplying this service has a drawback. Meeting the demand for such education will create much individual capacity in the society and this will have important contributions to development of human capital in the society and providing it new qualifications. However, if such a demand is not met and as a result of this fund of the people having such a demand is directed to only consuming market goods and services, the society will have to endure many negative results of such consumption. As old population in Turkey continues to increase like the case in all over the world, a demand for such an education cost of which will be paid will take part in agenda of Turkey much more than its current part. Both the developments in human rights concepts and the demographic developments point the same direction.