Overview of higher education in turkey and future directions

Turkey has a younger population compared to European countries. Due to this structure of the population, our country is still under numerical pressure at all educational levels except from elementary education. On the other hand, a conversion in the structure of the population has been experienced since 2000, and in long term, the share of the population in higher education age in the total population is expected to decrease to 29% from 34%. According to the Human Development Report in 2010, mean year of schooling in the adult population is 6.5, fairly behind the levels of developed countries. The ratio of adult population with tertiary education in our country is 13%. Despite the significant growth in higher education observed between 2001 and 2010, the gap between supply and demand remains important. Accordingly, except for distance education, approximately 40% of the applicants to higher education programs may have an Yükseköğretim ve Bilim Dergisi/Journal of Higher Education and Science DOI: 10.5961/jhes.2011.008 Overview of Higher Education in Turkey and Future Directions* Türkiye’de Yükseköğretimin Görünümü ve Geleceğe Bakış*