The Last 10 Years Of Geosciences Engineering Education In Turkey
Authors
Güzin Gülsev Aksoy, Cemaletttin Okay Aksoy, A. Alper Uyar
DOI
Abstract
Turkey ranks 16th in the list of countries with the highest number of universities in the world, especially in terms of new universities opened in the last 20 years. Its position in this ranking is far ahead of the most developed countries of the world such as England, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. This is, of course, a misconception. The large number of universities does not change the fact that very few of them are among the world's top 500 universities. However, universities in these countries compete with each other to be among the best in the world.
As for the situation of geoscience engineering: In the millennium century, geoscience engineering has received its rightful share in the universities opened under the slogan of universities in every province. The number of universities with mining, geological and geophysical engineering departments has reached 40.
This situation, which is expected to be pleasing for our sector, shows the reality when we look at the student placement rates in the 2023 data of the Student Selection and Placement Agency for Universities in Turkey. Unfortunately, 24 of these 40 universities were able to accept new students and fill only 60 per cent of their quotas. In fact, this situation is not limited to 2023. Unfortunately, geoscience engineering departments in Turkey have not been able to admit sufficient number of students for years.
This study explains how geosciences engineering departments in Turkey have entered a painful process in the last 10 years due to wrong education policies and mine accidents, and reveals the fact that the decreasing interest in these departments is due to the prejudices of the Turkish people and that these prejudices are a natural consequence of the events.