The Turkish higher education system in the 1990s

Abstract

This paper attempts to document the challenges facing the Turkish higher education system. Our analysis suggests that the nature of these problems and issues resonate closely with those that have sparked major reform initiatives in other parts of the world. Among the most important of these are the demand for enrollment expansion in the face of declining public resources; inadequate levels of teaching staff of high quality; inefficiencies exacerbated by shrinking public funding; the need for alternative ways of diversifying revenue sources; the problem of extremely tight governmental regulations and bureaucracies in the organisation and administration of higher education; and the deterioration of quality in many areas.