Azernews.Az

by Alimat Aliyeva

The results of Turkiye’s centralized university entrance exam, known as YKS, have revealed a sharp decline in interest in certain academic programs. In the new academic year, some departments will have almost no new students. In several cases, only students repeating the year or international students will attend first-year classes.

Some Turkish universities are now facing a particularly unusual situation: there are departments where the number of teachers significantly exceeds the number of first-year students. The problem affects both engineering programs and faculties of education.

For example, at Harran University in Şanlıurfa, all 10 places in the Environmental Engineering program remained vacant after this year’s YKS results. The department has 11 academic staff members, including five professors, while 28 students are currently enrolled in the program. Eighteen of them are citizens of Syria and Iraq. This means that the department has far more teaching staff than students entering the program this year.

Similar situations have been reported at universities in other parts of Turkiye. Lecture halls that once accommodated around 50 students can now sometimes have only one or two students sitting in them. This raises questions about how universities will maintain departments with such low enrollment and whether some programs may eventually have to be merged or closed.

Another striking example can be found at Kafkas University in Kars, where the Department of Food Engineering has only four students: two from Chad, one from Palestine and just one from Turkiye. The department has four teachers, including a professor, meaning that classes can resemble almost private lessons.

The decline in applications is not limited to engineering. Over the past two or three years, Turkish universities have reported weak interest in education programs and several scientific disciplines. This year alone, 265 places in related programs remained vacant across 26 universities, including institutions in Bolu, Kırşehir, Aksaray, Amasya, Bayburt, Yozgat, Sivas, Kars, Burdur, Nevşehir and Ordu.

At Hakkari University, for example, only one student is currently enrolled in the Department of Science Education — and he is already in his fourth year. This means that the department could potentially have no new students at all in the coming academic year.

The reasons behind this trend are complex. Young people increasingly consider future employment opportunities, salaries and the possibility of working abroad when choosing a degree. Some traditional academic fields, particularly teaching and certain scientific disciplines, may appear less attractive compared with professions in technology, medicine, business and other rapidly growing sectors.

The demographic situation may also play a role. Turkiye has experienced a decline in birth rates in recent years, meaning that the number of young people entering higher education could gradually decrease. At the same time, the country has expanded its university system significantly, creating a situation where there may simply be more university places than students willing to fill them.

Many universities are now hoping to attract additional students through the second round of university placements, as well as through the “Student Amnesty” recently introduced in Turkiye. The amnesty gives certain students who previously left university an opportunity to return and continue their education.

Interestingly, the situation illustrates a broader transformation taking place in Turkish higher education. Universities that once competed primarily to attract as many students as possible are increasingly facing the opposite problem: how to keep entire academic programs alive when there are too few students to fill them. If the trend continues, Turkiye may have to reconsider not only university admission policies but also the structure and number of academic programs offered across the country.