To improve the sophistication in production, Turkey has to educate dynamic engineers. It has to increase the number of Da Vincis against that of Dilberts.

Turkey needs more engineers. Turkey was a sleepy agricultural country before the 1980s. It has now become a dynamic, mid-tech industrial country. Now, we will either hop on the high-technology train or spend the next century in regret. High-technology requires more research and development (R&D). In the US, 53 percent of R&D staff overall have studied basic sciences and engineering. Turkey, too, needs more engineers from this perspective.

In fact, Turkey has quite a large number of engineering graduates. In 2010, 75,000 engineers graduated from Turkish universities. This is quite something. Yet, in response to the previous commentary on being an engineer in Turkey, I received a tweet that said, “I am an engineer, but I work at a call center.” I have been wondering to which school engineers in Turkey belong. Do we have Dilberts or Leonardo da Vincis here? Do we have technicians or genuine engineers? The qualifications of the engineer directly affect the quality of production. So, let me tell you what’s on my mind. Let’s see if you agree.

Being an engineer was a cool thing in the 1960s, when the Star Trek generation was growing up. If it wasn’t for chief engineer Scotty, the USS Enterprise would have been destroyed tens of times. For my generation, engineers were heroes. Later, the Star Trek generation was replaced by the Dilbert generation. Then, my generation almost had entered its thirties. It was the late 1980s. Dilbert is an ordinary engineer working in a large, open-office firm with hundreds of others. He is honest and hardworking, but as dull as dishwater. He was so dull that other characters of the comics age would think, “of course he wouldn’t get it straight. He's an engineer, after all.”

I mean, engineering was not so popular in the 1980s.

On the eve of the new millennium came academic studies that depicted how the quality of engineering education created two different types in a single profession. According to these, there are two types of engineers: those who are as dull as Dilbert, practicing engineering just for a living; and those who see engineering as a mission, who are dynamic and creative like Leonardo da Vinci.

So, to which group do engineers in Turkey belong? Mexico’s former president Calderon was particularly proud of graduating 130,000 engineers a year. Mexico has 130,000 engineers a year compared to Turkey’s 75,000. And how about China? Since 2009, around 1.9 million engineers have graduated each year. It is reported that the number of engineers in the sense we know is around 750,000. Here is another comparison for you: in China, 53 percent of university graduates study basic sciences, engineering, and mathematics. The rate in the US is one-third. What I understand from the figures is that we are in a period in which engineering education has been democratizing, just like industrialization has been democratizing and spreading towards developing countries. Supply creates its own demand. Yet, while all engineers are equal, some are more equal than others. This principle still seems to be in effect. Engineers are diverse in qualifications. Some work as technicians rather than engineers.

Do Mexico and China outperform Turkey in terms of production quality? Yes, they do. If we take Switzerland as the basis of production sophistication and quality, China and Mexico get 83 out of 100 while Turkey gets only 69 percent. The sophistication level of production in Turkey is the same as that of Russia or Saudi Arabia. The implication of the figures is that to improve the sophistication in production, Turkey has to educate dynamic engineers. It has to increase the number of Da Vincis against that of Dilberts.

Is there a quick solution? No. Just like a friend of mine said the other day, if there is no domestic production and domestic design, there will be no domestic engineers. Those few would go to work abroad anyway.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 25.01.2013