EUA Quality Culture Project
“Implementing
INSTITUTIONAL
REPORT
Contents
Brief
Presentation of the Institution
Geographical position of the
university
Number of faculties, research
institutes
Number and distribution of
students across levels and faculties. 3
The Scope
and Profile of the Institution
The decision-making structures
and processes of the institution
The institution’s preferred
didactic approaches
The balance between
centralization and decentralization at the Institution
The institution’s relationship
to society and its involvement in public debate
The institution’s policy with
regard to its international relations
The
National Education System, determined by the National Education Basic Act No.
1739, consists of two main parts, namely “formal education” and “non-formal
education”.
Formal education is the regular education
conducted within a school for individuals in a certain age group and at the
same level, under programs developed in accordance with the purpose. Formal
education includes pre-primary education, primary education, and secondary
education and higher education institutions.
Primary
education is compulsory for all male and female citizens and is free at state
schools. Primary education institutions consist of eight-year schools where
continuous education is provided and primary education diplomas are awarded to
the graduating students.
Secondary
education includes all education institutions of a general or vocational and
technical character of at least three years following primary education.
Students are prepared for both higher education and a profession or for life
and employment, in line with their interests and aptitudes.
Higher
education includes all education institutions offering at least two years of
higher education after secondary education. All higher education is governed by
the Council of Higher Education as an autonomous body with juristic personality
which directs the activities of the institutions of higher education (for
further detail, please refer to http://www.yok.gov.tr/).
Admission
to higher education is centralized and based on a nation-wide single-stage
examination, named the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS), administered by the
Student Selection and Placement Centre (ÖSYM) every year.
The objectives of higher education are to
educate students in line with their interests, talents and capabilities
according to the science policy of the country and to the needs of society for
high-quality manpower at various levels, to carry out research in scientific
areas, to produce all kinds of publications which present the results of
research and study and promote scientific and technical progress, to conduct
research and studies requested by the Government and provide opinions, to
publicize, verbally and in writing, scientific data which shall raise the
general level of Turkish society and enlighten the public, and to perform
services of non-formal education.
There
are currently 53 state and 23 private universities as higher education
institutions consisting of faculties, institutes, conservatories, vocational
schools (two and four years), and research centres.
There are
8 Faculties, 3 Institutes, 12 Vocational Schools, 1 Conservatory, 13 Centres of
Research and Application and 6 Rectorial Departments.
Apart from
specialized ones within several departments and faculties, there is a main
library on campus. It occupies a total area of 10.000 m2 with a
capacity of 800 seats. There are approximately 110,312 books and 252 printed
international periodicals in the main library together with local faculty
libraries.
Significant
investment in information technologies infrastructure is continuing with an
awareness of the increasing importance of academic and administrative
computing, online library and periodicals, communications, online information
resources for education, research and public services. Accordingly, in 2002,
the Görükle Campus network is completely renewed to
transfer at rates 1000 Mbps at base and 100Mbps at terminal users. The internet connection speed is
increased to 34 Mbps from 2Mbps. There are almost 3000 PCs connected to the
main network operating with campus wide licensed programs.
There are several laboratories
within departments and faculties that are established according to the
departmental requirements. UU recognizes that the continuous renewal of
equipment and the development of infrastructure is a significant challenge
depending on the sufficient allocation of the funding resources.
At the
2002-2003 Academic year, there are a total of 42.482 students, of which 12.805
are vocational school students, 26.974 are undergraduates, and 2.703 are
postgraduates. The number of foreign students is 712.
The number
of academic staff is 1952 (Professors: 320, Associate Professors: 131, Assistant
Professors: 233, Instructors: 390, Research Assistants: 787, Specialists: 91)
and the number of administrative staff is 1803. The distribution of these
numbers among the faculties is shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Number and distribution of academic
staff and undergraduate students among faculties
|
Faculties |
Date of Estab. |
No.
of Profs. |
No.
of Assoc. Profs. |
No.
of Asst. Profs. |
No.
of Instructors/Specialists |
No.
of Students |
No.
of Students per Lecturer |
|
Medicine |
1970 |
120 |
52 |
45 |
69 |
1.545 |
7* |
|
Economics
and Social Sciences |
1982 |
55 |
8 |
21 |
0 |
11.789 |
140 |
|
Engineering
and Architecture |
1976 |
25 |
21 |
15 |
33 |
2875 |
30.6 |
|
Veterinary |
1978 |
31 |
15 |
14 |
1 |
561 |
9 |
|
Agriculture |
1981 |
29 |
12 |
21 |
14 |
1.232 |
16.2 |
|
Education |
1982 |
9 |
6 |
41 |
94 |
5.140 |
34.3 |
|
Theology |
1975 |
21 |
2 |
25 |
12 |
793 |
13.2 |
|
Arts and Sciences |
1983 |
30 |
17 |
31 |
22 |
3.451 |
34.5 |
|
TOTAL |
|
320 |
133 |
213 |
245 |
27.386 |
|
* The specialists
in the Faculty of Medicine do not conduct lectures.
In U.S. Dollars
|
|
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
|
Government Budget |
51,646,898 |
52,926,802 |
40,624,341 |
48,153,668 |
|
Student and Other Fees |
9,398,487 |
8,097,235 |
6,954,521 |
3,368,055 |
|
Revolving Fund |
47,961,341 |
46,685,240 |
33,872,787 |
40,829,242 |
|
TOTAL |
109,215,095 |
108,012,419 |
81,715,208 |
92,857,927 |
In addition to all these, there is a
varying and relatively small amount of income obtained by the UU Foundation.
·
providing
a high quality education which produces individuals who are equipped with
contemporary knowledge, cultural values, communication skills, and able to take
responsibility of leadership in the service of community and humanity,
following the ideals and reforms of Atatürk, the
founder of modern
·
creating original values in research, culture, and art;
serving the Community in accordance with international norms; searching,
producing, applying and disseminating knowledge for the social, cultural,
economic, scientific and the technological improvement of the human race.
The highest decision-making body of UU is the
University Senate. The senate includes Rector, Vice-Rectors, Deans, Academic
Secretary, and members elected by the faculties. Although the Rector has the
highest power within the university, he/she is responsible for the general
condition and development of the University, and is accountable before the
senate and the Turkish Higher Education Council. The work of the faculty is
supervised by the dean and the councils of the faculty, which are both elected
by academic staff.
Development plans of the University, faculties
and other structural units are approved by the UU senate. However, strategic
issues are dealt with through formation of special committees since the
beginning of self-evaluation process in 2001. The managerial and committee
structures provide a framework for a range of mechanisms that are used to
manage quality and standards. These include processes for approving courses;
annual reviews; evaluating student feedback; the provision of guidelines and
codes of practice; and periodic reviews.
In line with its mission and vision,
UU has been oriented towards education but at the same time emphasizes the
importance of research in all fields. This is due to the fact that state
universities are bound to feel the crippling effects of politically
irresistible demands for mass education at any cost due to the demographic
pressures such as relatively young population. Therefore UU’s
current priority is to focus on the quality of education and its improvement
processes. It nevertheless reinforces the importance of close links between the
teaching and research interests of the faculty members. To this end, UU puts
every effort to allocate an increasing amount of research budget from its own
resources to achieve international standards. UU’s
determination in the reallocation of research budget can be clearly noticed in
Table 3.
Table 3. Research budget trends for
1999-2002.
|
|
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
|
Research budget |
$426.132 |
$453.109 |
$485.878 |
$4.082.924 |
|
% in total budget |
%0.39 |
%0.41 |
%0.59 |
%4.39 |
In 2001, UU further established a strategic
planning committee to discuss and develop a strategic vision and to determine
its priorities.
UU acknowledges the importance of
enhancing students’ possibilities to balance theoretical and practical
dimensions of the education through both curriculum and extra-curriculum
activities in all faculties. To achieve this balance, individual departments
have adopted several didactic approaches according to their curricula (i.e.
audio-visual supporting tools, teamwork in practice and applications,
integrated courses) despite the persistence of traditional lecture-based
teaching.
The present higher education law, introduced in
1981, promotes a nationwide highly centralized structure to higher education.
The same law increased the powers of the rectors within university vis-ą-vis deans, department heads, and
other academic directors. There is, therefore, a low degree of administrative
and financial autonomy in state universities in which university boards largely
govern academic matters. Decisions regarding the allocation of governmental
resources to faculties are taken by the rector according to the principles set
by the university senate. As for the financial activities, UU manages to
effectively facilitate the UU foundation and revolving funds to generate
additional income.
Within this institutional structure, UU exercises
a certain level of autonomy in areas, such as: designing curricula and course
contents, student assessment, staff selection criteria, subject to the approval
of the University Senate, the meetings of which are broadcasted live in
intranet in order to develop an awareness among its members. UU is committed to
the continuous improvement of academic activities in autonomous departmental
functions through appropriate centralized or decentralized mechanisms such as
advisory committees responsible for coordination of actions and dissemination
of quality improvement methods.
In the last two years, UU’s
current quality improvement efforts are particularly an evidence of the
relative autonomy that UU exercises through its relations with EUA and other
international institutions.
UU contributes to the life of the city of
UU Research and
UU is also engaged in organizing various
programs such as conferences and panels in order to meet academicians’,
students’ and people’s interest about societal, cultural and economic issues.
Having reviewed the arrangements for the
management of the educational and research quality, UU and its faculties
initiated a quality improvement program through its relations with EUA and
various international quality evaluation institutions in the last two years.
The main objective of UU in international
relationships is collaboration and sharing of the particular strengths and
potential required of higher education providers. Towards this collaborative
framework it has established bilateral agreements with 26 universities in
various countries such as
UU is strongly aware of the fact that “quality
begins with each individual member of staff” and recognizes the “need for
rigorous quality assurance mechanisms, responsibility for which must reside at
institutional level”. The principal structure established to support the
quality framework within the University is based around the University
Accreditation Council (UAC), established in 2001, with the support of Strategic
Planning Committee (SPC). SPC is responsible for developing the objectives of
UU in accordance with the mission and vision statements. Whereas UAC, which
consists of representatives of each faculty, is of advisory capacity and
implements the processes to achieve the objectives of UU under the leadership
of the rector and the approval of the senate.