The Importance of Autonomy and Financial Flexibility in Turkish Higher Education System

Year 2000, Issue: 2, 0 - 0, 01.06.2000

Nurgün Oktik

Abstract

Higher education and an ability for independent research are regarded as important elements in fostering progress among developing countries. It is widely believed that a higher education institution should be able to distance itself from government control to be able to fulfill independent teaching and research activities. When universities are not financially independent, it can be argued that complete autonomy may be unrealistic. However in recent years limitation on the autonomy of higher education, across the world, has been exhibiting an increasing trend. Thus the universities of most countries fear that they are losing their ability to do independent education and research and fast becoming government agencies. A common view is that the academics are left no choice but to help solve manpower needs by training more highly qualified people in accordance with government and industry requirements. This article deals with higher education institutions which have been forced to do more with less. The Turkish higher education institutions, especially newly established ones in relatively small provinces are under increasing financial pressure. Therefore, progress to build infrastructure for education and research is going at a very slow pace. Despite that, they are asked to be prepared for a challenge of unfair competition in education and research by their more established counterparts. It is clear that in order to improve the uniformity of higher education in Turkey more flexible financial policies are needed to speed up the progress of younger universities.