Turkish Youth: An Outlook on Education and Employment

Education and employment for Turkey's youth irritate the Turkish population because educating the youthful masses for a university degree seem lackluster at best, while creating comparable employment opportunities may most likely be unattainable in the near future.

Conversely, even the top-ranked Turkish universities compete for enough professors or other highly-qualified instructors to teach Turkey's hungry minds. A new university may take years to develop their curricula, and basic facilities and services may not come for some years later.

Where does this problem leave the universities and the students whom they're to educate?

Thinking outside the box might help, but willingness to share escapes the mind-think in the country and leaves them in the dust a lot of the time. Until 2007, Turkey couldn't claim even one university ranked in the top 500 of the world.

The MIT Open Courseware Program could help Turkey brainstorm workable ideas to combat her deficit of qualified teaching staff. The MIT program shares 1800 courses online for free to anyone who wants to take them. You get all the same class material as the students in-residence; you just don't get a grade and official transcript.

Turkish universities could take parts of curricula from different faculties to share with those universities lacking professors in hard-to-fill positions. They could also use video-conferencing across the universities to offer courses.

Additionally, to gain some attention to the country's universities and attract foreign students, they could share those courses online for free similar to the MIT project.

If you wonder what a foreign student may face when attending a Turkish university, check out one student's experience who attended Middle East Technical University in Ankara, a highly-regarded institution.

I invite you to share your stories or observations as a foreigner in a Turkish university. Click Comments below and sound off.