It is known that the number of foreign students in Turkey has been on the rise. According to data from the last 10 years, the number of international students remained level at about 15,000 until 2008. It has dramatically increased since YÖK actively has taken charge of the process and introduced regulations in procedures and implementations. The uptrend continues. For instance, the number of foreign students in Turkish higher education institutions in the 2013-2014 academic year was 48,183, but jumped to 72,178 in the 2014-2015 academic year and increased by 1.8 times and settled at 87,903 in the 2015-2016 academic year.

The number of foreign students enrolled in graduate programs in Turkish higher education institutions was 10,855 in the 2013-2014 academic year; the figure almost doubled and jumped to 22,721 in the 2015-2016 academic year. Therefore, the ratio of international students to the total number of students enrolled in Turkish graduate programs increased as well. This ratio was 3.3 percent in the 2013-2014 academic year and improved to 4.5 percent in the 2015-2016 academic year. Notwithstanding, the ratio of foreign students in total graduate programs across the world has hardly changed in the last years and remains almost at the level of 25 percent.

Turkey needs consolidation and rehabilitation in its internationalization of higher education. Internationalization of Turkish higher education lacks in-depth study, field studies in particular. Articles containing general assessments or short reports are seen more often. It is very difficult to administer the process without conducting field research and without observations from the field. More studies should be carried out in order to help policy makers to make the right decisions.

One of the most critical areas that needs rehabilitation is, beyond the total number of enrolled foreign students, the distribution of foreign students in undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs. International students in Turkey mostly concentrate on associate degree programs (approximately 6 percent) and bachelor’s degree programs (approximately 69 percent). In developed countries, however, the ratios of foreign students in graduate degree programs constitute higher percentages. The OECD’s Education at a Glance 2015 report indicates that the OECD average number of international students enrolled in bachelor’s or equivalent degree programs stood at 6 percent in 2013, but rose as the level of education increased, settling at 14 percent for master’s programs and reaching 24 percent for PhD programs.

In Turkey, however, the numbers of foreign students enrolled in bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD programs were 1 percent, 4 percent and 4 percent, respectively, in 2013. Having qualified international students in graduate programs amplifies research capacities in higher education institutions as it positively contributes to a country’s power of economic competition. Therefore, it is necessary for Turkey to concentrate more on the distribution of foreign students in higher education programs, develop new policies to this end, and accelerate the relevant implementations.

The percentage of foreign students in PhD programs in Turkey is one-sixth of the OECD average and this points to a significant issue. It seems that doctoral programs in Turkey are not attractive for international students. In fact, irrespective of the perceptions of the foreign students, master’s and PhD programs in Turkey need improvement. Although the problems of master’s and PhD programs and solution recommendations are not the topic of this article, the situation involving these programs must be promptly addressed and remedial steps must be taken.

The problems involving PhD programs in Turkey were presented in a report titled “Views on the Status of PhD Education” by the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) in 2006. Apparently, the same problems still exist today. The number of master’s students increased from 92,862 in the years covered in the report to 417,084, and the number of PhD students from 27,393 to 86,094 in the 2015-2016 academic year. Again, the number of PhD graduates remained between 2,000 and 2,500 in the same years, and the current figure has risen to 4,500-5,000. However, the number of graduates has not increased as expected, though the numbers of master’s students and faculty members have increased considerably.

According to the same report, one master’s student graduated per one or two faculty members, and one PhD student graduated per 10 or 11 faculty members. The data for the academic years of 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 reveal almost no change for master’s programs, but the situation worsened for PhD programs to one PhD graduate per 13 or 14 faculty members. The ratio of the number of graduate students enrolled to the number of graduate degrees granted was calculated in the same report. The ratio was four for master’s degree programs, while it was 10 for PhD programs. It is stated that the difference stems from the prolongation of postgraduate education programs. The difference is even wider today. For instance, the ratio for master’s programs increased to approximately six in the 2013-2014 academic year (262,752/41,842) and to approximately eight in the 2014-2015 academic year (342,101/43,713). As for PhD programs, the ratio increased to approximately 15 in the 2013-2014 academic year (65,864/4,516) and to approximately 16 in the 2014-2015 academic year (78,223/4,910).

PhD programs are the education programs that have multiple effects. Quality and quantity problems in doctoral degree programs negatively affect many areas involving R&D activities in our higher education system and our country. To maintain the enormous growth of recent years in our higher education system, an in-depth discussion of doctoral education is necessary. Additionally, the quality of these programs must be improved and immediate measures must urgently be taken in order to increase the number of PhD graduates. To this end, TÜBA must play an active role and develop solutions. In particular, opening graduate level courses with languages of instruction completely in English, French, and Arabic is a must. The international recognition of Turkish higher education institutions must be achieved and encouraged as well. Efforts in this direction will naturally have a positive effect on the number of international students enrolled in Turkish higher education and increase their capability to conduct joint international research projects.

One of the issues that needs improvement is the scarcity of international students and faculty members in the universities of good reputation in education and research capabilities. The number of international students in leading universities around the world has a good share in the total number of students. For instance, the ratio of foreign students to the total number of students is 62 percent at the London School of Economics, 33 percent at MIT, 21 percent at Stanford, and 17 percent at Harvard. In the academic year of 2013-2014, a sizeable portion of international students in Turkey (3,051 students, 6.33 percent) were enrolled at Istanbul University; however, this figure amounts to 2.37 percent of the total number of students enrolled at the same university.

The countrywide distribution also reveals that international students in Turkey are mostly from neighboring and Turkic-language countries. Turkmenistan topped the list, followed by Azerbaijan and Iran in the 2013-2014 academic year. However, Turkey receives very few foreign students from the countries sending the highest numbers of students abroad, and the ratio of the students Turkey receives from these countries is very low compared to the total number of students it sends abroad. The international fair promotion support provided by the Ministry of Economy should be used more actively and extensively, targeting these countries in particular.

On the other hand, the number of foreign faculty members in Turkish higher education institutions steadily increases. Still, this is a small number. According to the last 10 years’ data, the total number of foreign faculty members stood at 1,057 in the 2006-2007 academic year and increased by approximately 2.9 times, settling at 3,114 in the 2015-2016 academic year. The number of faculty members coming from other countries to teach in Turkish universities is approximately 2 percent of the total number of faculty members. Turkey must urgently take measures in the matter. YÖK has recently launched the Foreign Academics Information System (YABSIS) to this end. This is a joint project run by YÖK and the Turkish Prime Ministry to primarily create a database of foreign academics and researchers (who had to immigrate to Turkey due to natural disasters and wars), by compiling their job applications, and providing assistance to them to find employment in Turkish higher education institutions in accordance with the relevant procedures. It is reported that the scope of the online portal will be broadened to take in applications from all foreign academics and researchers who are willing to work in Turkey.

It is good news to highlight the efforts towards the internationalization of Turkish higher education institutions. Universities in Turkey are known to have international cooperation and almost every university puts effort into this. References to the numbers of foreign students and faculty members and of international agreements signed by each university are included in advertising and promotion campaigns. However, it is also the case that these efforts are limited to programs involving the mobility of foreign students and faculty members. The number of students in the Erasmus exchange program coming into Turkey is lower than Turkish students going abroad via the same program.

In the last 10 years, from 2004 to 2014, a total of 23,109 Erasmus students attended Turkish higher education programs as opposed to 74,231 Turkish students who joined Erasmus programs abroad. On the other hand, similar exchange programs do not seem to boost joint research programs among universities, and problems exist in this regard. So, this needs to be investigated thoroughly. It is critical for national initiatives to take action in this direction. The Ministry of Development, regional development agencies, and new support programs of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) should provide more assistance to the process, develop more international projects, and make more contributions to the development of such projects. All and all, this will mean a crucial step in regional development.

Herewith, Turkey has taken critical steps in recent years to strengthen the internationalization of its higher education system. The enrollment ratio in Turkish higher education has also increased, together with the recent remarkable growth in higher education; at present, Turkish higher education experiences the internationalization phase in a similar fashion. Therefore, the state of higher education today is not independent from that of yesteryears. Although Turkey falls behind other countries in terms of developments in higher education, it is extremely encouraging to see that higher education institutions attach importance to internationalization while competing with one another, and that they are eager in the subject matter.

From the Ministry of Economy to the Ministry of Development, from YÖK to YTB and the Yunus Emre Institute, all shareholders contribute significantly to the internationalization process of Turkish higher education, being aware of the importance of this process to our country. For sound management of the internationalization of higher education institutions, Turkey needs to put forth more effort and conduct studies to closely follow similar processes, developments, and good examples around the world, and to provide venues for constant improvement by taking the potential and opportunities of our country into consideration.

The devastation of an historic city with an unplanned urban landscape and uncontrolled growth, including poor and non-developed urban slums, has brought with it new challenges as well as opportunities. Europe saw a great renewal and reconstruction of its historic cities after World War II. It supplied the builders with ample chances for creating cities equipped with modern streets, sanitation systems and innovative lodging. City planners, composed of miscellaneous scholarly disciplines like social and urban history, geography, architecture and town planning and political science, created functionally differentiated separate zones of housing, industry, culture, government and recreation. This way of reimagining Europe’s cities was common to both fascist and democratic countries.

Needless to say, urban reconstruction is a complex task with enormous potential for conflict that policy-makers have to tackle.

Needless to say, urban reconstruction is a complex task with enormous potential for conflict that policy-makers have to tackle: the clearance of the rubble and debris, financing the renewal project, the allocation of building material and labor, the extent of the possibility of historic cities being amenable to urban renewal during reconstruction, the creation of new streets and social amenities, the possibility of planning the city with functionally distinct zones in order to keep housing, commerce, industry and culture separate, deciding about the population density, the dilemma of building historic cities with a modern conception while keeping its traditional fabric intact, and the like. On top of all, there are two crucial questions: Who will make decisions for the city? The central government, the local town authorities, or private individuals? And how will priorities be determined vis-a-vis urban needs?

All of the queries listed above inform the debate sparked by the Sur Renewal Project (Sur İhya Projesi) initiated by the AK Party government. The Council of Ministers took the decision of  “urgent expropriation” of 6,300 parcels scattered along 15 neighborhoods of Sur, which included the building of the Sur Municipality, some hotels, and the Cemil Pasha Mansion in March 2016. This decision was contested by the Diyarbakır Bar Association before the Higher Administrative Court (Danıştay) and is still awaiting a final decision. Former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had announced the Sur Renewal Project in Diyarbakır on April 1, 2016. According to what Davutoğlu said, the project will be based on the consent of, and reconciliation with, the local residents. The starting point of the project is UNESCO’s 2015 decision, which placed the city within the scope of World Heritage Sites, and the 2012  Reconstruction Plan for Conservation that involved both the central government and the Diyarbakır Greater Municipality as its executive partners.

Rebuilding Sur while retaining its traditional fabric is an indispensable element of the project. The participation of Sur residents in the relevant decisions throughout the process would be taken as a must, and their ownership rights would be protected. Inner Sur would be restored in accordance with its multi-faith and multicultural character, and be organized as a tourist attraction. The facade of houses in Gazi Street, the main street of Sur, will be renovated by using Diyarbakır’s local and historic basalt stones. “We’ll rebuild Sur so that it’s like (Spain’s) Toledo: everyone will want to come and appreciate its architectural texture” said Davutoğlu. However, the pro-PKK Diyarbakır Municipality and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) argued against the governmental discourse of “renewal of the city by keeping its history intact.” Let’s go over these arguments and to which degree they can be substantiated.

During the period of multi-party democracy, no democratic government resorted to the forced deportation of the Kurdish people. Democracy is not amenable to forced social engineering. The forced displacement in the 90s, and other forced settlement policies were all enacted under military rules. Therefore, the argument that the rebuilding project for Sur envisions a change to its demographic structure by allowing and encouraging non-Kurds, especially Arabs, (possibly Syrian emigrants) politically unsympathetic to Kurdish nationalists  to occupy the district has no relevance whatsoever. Most of the refugee camps established for the Syrians are not situated inside the Kurdish majority areas, and not all of the refugees are Arab. Therefore, the claim that through various bureaucratic and financial means, the poor Kurdish residents who fled the city will be prevented from coming back has not materialized and has proven to be merely ideological propaganda. The government’s concern is to create public places to comfortably live, not to unman the district and turn it into a well-protected high security place, a sort of open prison, as has been suggested. Pushing poor people from where they live and replacing them with more affluent people may indeed be one of the most common way to develop desirable urban areas. However, the government’s declaration that no right-holder in Sur will be pressured to agree to an option that they do not want has publicly falsified this assertion.

The government’s concern is to create public places to comfortably live, not to unman the district and turn it into a well-protected high security place.

Similarly, the claim that the Project will ruin the historical-cultural texture of the city and its collective memory has no relevance, given the political and civilizational imagination inspired by the “Toledo model.” Sur was already the commercial heart of the city and there is no sense in arguing that “more trade and less housing” is something undesirable. The fact that TOKİ, the government’s housing and reconstruction agency, was declared not to be a constituent of the rebuilding in Sur, and that every building will be treated on a case by case basis, both in terms of ownership rights and architectural features, refute the allegations of “gentrification by military force” and “economic opportunism.”

To be sure, the rebuilding process will be based on an urban plan more amenable to state security control, and this is legitimate to the full. The Toledo model seems to well reflect the multicultural character of the city while paying attention the Seljuki-Ottoman cultural imprint, aiming not to conceal but to expose the Muslim heritage, in contrast to the HDP municipality which pushed this legacy to the back under the pretext of “multiculturalism.”

It is obvious that the rebuilding process secures a fresh opportunity for the AK Party government to reinforce its political legitimacy. The declaration of the region as “a risky area,” and accordingly, taking the decision of “urgent expropriation” indicate the government’s intention not to make Sur a habitat for the rich but to create a safe haven both for the state and for Sur dwellers in commercial, cultural and security terms.

All of the arguments against the project have proven to be groundless, given Davutoğlu’s statements regarding Sur, with the declared model for the renewal being the city of Toledo, an ancient multicultural city rebuilt after the Spanish Civil War. The non-involvement of TOKİ in the reconstruction process, the adoption of the pillars of the UNESCO World Heritage Site and the 2012 Reconstruction Plan for Conservation as the obligatory framework for the renewal, the participatory character of the process and the declared sensitivity of the government for the retention of the historic city while paying enough attention to modern technical facilities, the involvement of not only architects and engineers but also art historians, anthropologists, sociologists, urban designers and social policy experts, all combine to create hopes for the rebirth of a devastated city out of love and respect for historicity, multiculturalism, democratic participation and, without a doubt, a reemergence of the feeling of security for life, liberty and property.