Commentaries
Güven Sak, PhD - [Archive]
What’s with the Boğaziçi zombies? 09/11/2012 - Viewed 1827 times
The draft shows us that all has been quiet on the YÖK front since its establishment.
Last week Radikal had an eye catching headline “One thousand zombies at Boğaziçi University.” It seems that this referred to students who were un able to pass the English preparation class. There were many of them. One of the banners in the story image asked for conditional pass for the English class. I believe this is a bad idea. In addition, with the new Higher Education Council (YÖK) Draft Law on the table, I think that the issue of the English preparation class is good chance to address the issues into which YÖK, the peak of the bureaucracy in Turkey, should not poke its nose. Let me tell you what I think.
First things first. Boğaziçi students waiting to pass the English class might be thinking that they’re the only ones suffering from this problem. But they are not. All of the high-quality universities around Turkey have zombies of their own today. Come visit the TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Ankara to see our zombies. The number of people in Turkey who somehow cannot speak English has been increasing. This problem has become as tangled as it is today because of the February 28th process. Demands for continuous eight-year compulsory education eventually led to the closure of English preparation classes in elite schools, the only ones that had been able to teach proper English. The preparation classes that were closed back than have now resulted in the rise of the number of university zombies. This is the first thing to stress.
And the second one… A student asking for the right to pass the English class conditionally means: “Allow me allow to follow my department’s classes before I pass the English class. I will learn English meantime.” This is a bad idea even for universities where the language of education is Turkish. Why? Because for any given discipline, speaking and reading English is the only way to follow the literature. Today, it is possible to learn about any innovation in any field and in any part of the world immediately online. Let me correct that. If you know how to speak and read English, it is possible for you to learn about any innovation in any field and in any part of the world immediately. If you cannot speak English properly, you cannot sell your products to the world or provide maintenance and repair services. Neither can you reach the $500 billion export target by 2023. Even when the education language is Turkish, you cannot follow the lesson if you cannot read the foreign articles in the reading list or watch the up-to-date developments in the field online. Demands for conditional pass are meaningless for education, unless your objective is to distribute diplomas.
The third point is about the attitude YÖK has assumed against this issue so far. As it always has, YÖK has chosen to manage the problem rather than deal with the underlying causes and has come up with a series of professed solutions to fit everyone. First, it made one of its usual monotype decisions: “English preparation class cannot be obligated in universities that teach in Turkish.” Later, it declared: “Students that are not able to pass the English class can either wait until they pass the class or study at another university where Turkish is the language of education.” This decision in effect means, “Turkish cannot be the language of education in high-quality universities.” According to YÖK, you have to speak in Turkish in universities. Totally wrong, but what can you say? The new draft law on YÖK also carries the traces of a similar mentality of monotype management. The draft shows us that it is all quite on the YÖK front since its establishment.
This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 09.11.2012
