The Turkish government has developed a new project to introduce students of new universities in Anatolia to veteran academicians working in major cities in order to increase the efficiency of higher education, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said.
Speaking at an introductory meeting of the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) Anadolu Project in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan said students of 15 newly established universities will receive some of their courses from veteran academicians of 12 well-known universities.
“With the project, we will make possible transparent employment of human resources with a Ph.D. This platform will bring together Turkish or foreign academician candidates and our universities who are seeking academics,” Erdoğan said.
The president said that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has made huge investments in higher education since 2002, increasing the number of universities from 76 to 207, and the number of students from 1.6 million to 8.4 million.
“Another good development is increasing the ratio of female students, which has been increased from 42% to 49%. Also, the number of academics rose to 180,000 from 70,000. In terms of the percentage of female academics, we are about 5 percentage points above the European Union average, which is 40%,” he said.
Erdoğan said the AK Party initiated the project to establish universities in every province of Turkey with the aim of providing higher education to young people on the basis of social justice and equal opportunity. He noted that the operation has facilitated higher learning for hundreds of thousands of aspiring youth who were unable to leave their cities due to financial, social or cultural difficulties.
The move has also had a positive effect on women, increasing the rate of females at university, Erdoğan added.
