Multilevel Study of the Higher Education Challenges Caused by the Migration Crisis in Turkey

Abstract

The study is aimed to analyse challenges of the higher education which have been caused by the migration crisis for a few last years in Turkey. As it is known the refugees that flow from Syria, Iraq and other war-affected countries have drastically transformed the European space in terms of culture, communication, policies in education and employment. The paper concerns the higher education system in Turkey which has become the largest refugee population country in the world. Using a multilevel approach, the paper scrutinises educational policies including the European Commission statements, policies issued by the Turkish government and Higher Education Council in Turkey, and provides an overview of the situation in education concerning the Syrian refugee’s children in camps and public schools. The special focus is on the current situation in higher educational establishments and the refugee’s impact on the teaching and learning processes. With this purpose the instructors from universities located in different parts of Turkey were invited to respond to a specially designed questionnaire for obtaining their insights on the problems and specifics of teaching refugees. Considering peculiar conditions of the refugees due to their sociocultural and educational background, the potential of MOOCs (massive open online courses) as an alternative means of providing access to education is under discussion. With this concern the experts’ opinion on MOOCs are analysed together with such pre-requisitions as the status of MOOCs in higher institutions in Turkey, ICT tools utilised by instructors in their teaching, attitudes towards MOOCs and applicability of online learning for the refugees’ education. The paper concludes with the recommendations on developing MOOCs for the learning purposes of refugees and ways of implementing online learning in their educational practices.