Progress In Turkish Education
Vincent Boland, Financial Times (London, England), 12/09/04
At first glance, the campus of Sabanci University, onthe edge of Istanbul, looks more like an office park than a seat of learning. Surrounded by motorway construction and dismal industrial buildings, its appearance would disappoint those who associate universities with dreaming spires.
But in the five years since it was founded, the university has emerged as a new kind of academic institution in Turkey. In that time it has struck at least one significant blow for academic freedom, especially in the teaching of history, in a country fond of historical orthodoxies. And it is one of a handful of institutions shaping the new Turkey that is now pushing hard to join the European Union.
"We want our students to question everything, to form their own opinions," says Tosun Terzioglu, rector of Sabanci University.
This is a relatively novel concept in Turkish universities, which have been an integral part of the official process of forging the nation and the citizen since the republic was created in 1923.
Sabanci University, along with Koc University in Istandbul and Bilkent University in Ankara, have emerged as elite private educational institutions in a country where the state struggles, both to educate all its children, and to provide them with jobs.
In addition, their independence has allowed for more diversity of subject matter and opinion not only within their study halls but without. Following their lead, state universities are beginning to broaden their curricula and discuss taboo subjects, breaking free from the censorship that lingered long after the army crushed university dissent following a military coup in 1980.
Sabanci University is a private institution, founded with a Dollars 210m (Euros 156m, Pounds 108m) investment from the billionaire Sabanci family, which owns one of Turkey's two largest conglomerates.
Because it is not part of the state apparatus, the university can allow its staff complete academic freedom, sometimes to take an unorthodox or controversial line of thinking on the issues that face Turkey today.
For decades, the teaching of Turkish history at Turkish universities has considered the country as unique, without putting it in a global or regional context.
A guarantee of academic freedom stems from a controversy that erupted in late 2000, when Halil Berktay, a history professor at Sabanci University, enraged Turkish nationalists with his revisionist interpretation of Turkey's"Armenian question" - the historically unresolved issue of whether Armenians were the victims of genocide in 1915, as the Ottoman empire was disintegrating.
For decades, Turkey has rejected all claims of genocide and has insisted that, while there may have been crimes committed against the Armenians in those chaotic days, modern Turkey cannot be held responsible. Prof Berktay became the first Turkish historian working at a Turkish university to challenge that view.
In the furore that followed, Sabanci University stood by the professor. Other universities, especially those that rely on the state for funding, may have yielded to pressure to dismiss him.
"It didn't even occur to me that I would be abandoned by Sabanci University when I spoke out," Prof Berktay says."In most Turkish state universities there is a stiff, straitjacketed, hierarchical approach to saying something perceived as being against the national interest, whatever that is, and in that framework it is virtually unthinkable to go against the conventional wisdom."
The university's stance has attracted independent-minded staff - often Turkish professors who once worked abroad.
Like other foundation universities in the country, teaching is done in English, and students are offered language classes to bring them up to standard to study in a second language.
It is part of the internationally minded approach that now imbues the university, which draws students from all over the country to its three faculties - engineering and natural sciences, management, and arts and social sciences.
"We're hoping to change perceptions in Turkey," says Alpay Filiztekin, who teaches economics at the university."Turkey has many problems, and it should be possible to contribute to the solutions to those problems without fear of being fired. This has been a revolution in Turkey."
At first glance, the campus of Sabanci University, onthe edge of Istanbul, looks more like an office park than a seat of learning. Surrounded by motorway construction and dismal industrial buildings, its appearance would disappoint those who associate universities with dreaming spires.
But in the five years since it was founded, the university has emerged as a new kind of academic institution in Turkey. In that time it has struck at least one significant blow for academic freedom, especially in the teaching of history, in a country fond of historical orthodoxies. And it is one of a handful of institutions shaping the new Turkey that is now pushing hard to join the European Union.
"We want our students to question everything, to form their own opinions," says Tosun Terzioglu, rector of Sabanci University.
This is a relatively novel concept in Turkish universities, which have been an integral part of the official process of forging the nation and the citizen since the republic was created in 1923.
Sabanci University, along with Koc University in Istandbul and Bilkent University in Ankara, have emerged as elite private educational institutions in a country where the state struggles, both to educate all its children, and to provide them with jobs.
In addition, their independence has allowed for more diversity of subject matter and opinion not only within their study halls but without. Following their lead, state universities are beginning to broaden their curricula and discuss taboo subjects, breaking free from the censorship that lingered long after the army crushed university dissent following a military coup in 1980.
Sabanci University is a private institution, founded with a Dollars 210m (Euros 156m, Pounds 108m) investment from the billionaire Sabanci family, which owns one of Turkey's two largest conglomerates.
Because it is not part of the state apparatus, the university can allow its staff complete academic freedom, sometimes to take an unorthodox or controversial line of thinking on the issues that face Turkey today.
For decades, the teaching of Turkish history at Turkish universities has considered the country as unique, without putting it in a global or regional context.
A guarantee of academic freedom stems from a controversy that erupted in late 2000, when Halil Berktay, a history professor at Sabanci University, enraged Turkish nationalists with his revisionist interpretation of Turkey's"Armenian question" - the historically unresolved issue of whether Armenians were the victims of genocide in 1915, as the Ottoman empire was disintegrating.
For decades, Turkey has rejected all claims of genocide and has insisted that, while there may have been crimes committed against the Armenians in those chaotic days, modern Turkey cannot be held responsible. Prof Berktay became the first Turkish historian working at a Turkish university to challenge that view.
In the furore that followed, Sabanci University stood by the professor. Other universities, especially those that rely on the state for funding, may have yielded to pressure to dismiss him.
"It didn't even occur to me that I would be abandoned by Sabanci University when I spoke out," Prof Berktay says."In most Turkish state universities there is a stiff, straitjacketed, hierarchical approach to saying something perceived as being against the national interest, whatever that is, and in that framework it is virtually unthinkable to go against the conventional wisdom."
The university's stance has attracted independent-minded staff - often Turkish professors who once worked abroad.
Like other foundation universities in the country, teaching is done in English, and students are offered language classes to bring them up to standard to study in a second language.
It is part of the internationally minded approach that now imbues the university, which draws students from all over the country to its three faculties - engineering and natural sciences, management, and arts and social sciences.
"We're hoping to change perceptions in Turkey," says Alpay Filiztekin, who teaches economics at the university."Turkey has many problems, and it should be possible to contribute to the solutions to those problems without fear of being fired. This has been a revolution in Turkey."