When it comes to education, 'even Turkey' has something to teach the EU

Friday, June 16, 2006

Beware the innocent appearance of this modest word, 'even.' It’s a journalist’s trap, just one of many in any language. Subjective prejudice can easily hide within such a seemingly objective term, and so it was with last week’s cover of Newsweek magazine: 'Europe’s Failing Schools.' The story concluded a paragraph examining the budgets Germany, France and Italy sets aside for education with the following sentence: 'Last year, even Turkey surpassed these three.' Why 'even'? David Judson
Beware the innocent appearance of this modest word, “even.” It's a journalist's trap, just one of many in any language. Subjective prejudice can easily hide within such a seemingly objective term, and so it was with last week's cover of Newsweek magazine: “Europe's Failing Schools.” The story concluded a paragraph examining the budgets Germany, France and Italy sets aside for education with the following sentence: “Last year, even Turkey surpassed these three.” Why “even”?
It seems quite reasonable to me for Europe's youngest and most dynamic society to set aside a higher percentage of GDP for education than the three oldest and most static. But perhaps that is my own subjective judgment. The fact is the word Turkey never came up again in the story. But it was certainly worth the reading, as implicitly it told us a great deal about the state of Turkish education.
In Europe's largest university, Rome's La Sapanienza, students meet in circus tents as there are no funds to repair decrepit classrooms. In Berlin's Rütli Hauptschule vocational school, not a single graduate last year found a job, which prompted the teachers to petition for the school's closure. Outside of the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and to some degree the United Kingdom, unemployment is the most likely fate for any student graduating the university system in Europe.
We've become accustomed to debate Turkey's education problems in stark terms. There is much to lament and condemn. But the point is that Turkey does not face the challenge of education alone and in fact, a comparison with Europe's leading lights may tell us the situation here is not as hopeless as we sometimes sense. This “even Turkey...” assessment was based on a study by the Center for European Reform (CER) think tank in London. This report draws directly the line between education and economic performance and I suspect it is within this link that some of the potential for Turkish success may be hidden.

Drab uniformity:
“The Future of European Universities -- Renaissance or Decay?” is a comprehensive report that looks at education in many dimensions. But if I might try to summarize a few of its points they would be as follows:
In the economic competition between the European Union and the United States, each year the EU slips a bit further behind. Europe's R&D spending is relatively weak and communication and collaboration between business and academia is fractured. Innovation moves slowly, if at all, from laboratory to marketplace. There are a number of big exceptions worth pointing out. Many are in the UK, including both Cambridge and Oxford. Others would include Holland's Delft Technical University, Finland's University of Oulu and RWTE University in the German city of Aachen.
But the norm is far more grim. The CER report describes a “drab uniformity” in European higher education. In the quest for equality since World War II, the pursuit of excellence has been forgotten. Despite the fact the total in R&D funding for Europe is less than that in the United States, it is spread far thinner. More than 2,000 EU institutions fight and divide the research funding pie while in the United States just 100 “elite” institutions carve up the lion's share. Centralization and bureaucracy reigns supreme. Appointments of Italian professors await approval from the minister of finance, who controls the budgets of all universities. Easy entrance has made university study more appealing over the years, but the rapid growth of the student population to 17 million has only reinforced this dependence on central funding resources. “European universities need new resources to reform, but they can't expect more resources until they manage to do a better and more efficient job with those they already have,” notes the report in its exploration of many dilemmas.

No culture of philanthropy:
Europe's culture of philanthropy is generally weak and there is strong resistance to provision of private education. The private university is almost a foreign concept. In Greece, private universities are expressly illegal. The few successful examples are to be found in Poland, Hungary and Spain.
This latter insight is, I believe, the most thought provoking for Turkey. We are already familiar with the example of private or “foundation” universities in Turkey. Yes, the spread of “dershane” cram schools may well be an educational tragedy, but it does illustrate the willingness to commit private resources to schooling. And state universities here are not without success in garnering private support. The former rector of Istanbul Technical University, Dr. Gülsün Sağlamer, raised $80 million for infrastructure development from graduates. Kayseri's Erciyes University has similarly financed construction with contributions from local business. And other examples exist.
What does this mean? I certainly have no wish to paint a fairytale portrait of Turkish universities. We all know the problems are many and deep. But Turkey does have equally deep experience, a form of intellectual capital that could serve Europe well. I would argue that even Turkey has something to teach Europe about education. Yes, “even” Turkey.
David Judson is the managing editor of Referans, Turkey's national business daily. Write him at davidjudson@referansgazetesi.com