Navigating priorities: Assessing the challenges of curriculum reform in Turkish Urban and Regional Planning Schools

Abstract

Planning departments in Türkiye recently witnessed a boom. In less than 20 years, the number of universities offering urban planning programs increased from a dozen to 45, most accepting students with limited resources. Urban planning education has faced many challenges over the last two decades, and offering education with limited resources carried this problem to another level, increasing concerns among scholars about the quality of the education and the learning outcomes a planner should possess at graduation. While planning schools in Türkiye deals with the issues above, global debates in planning education revolve around integrating topics such as climate change, inequality, informality, and decolonization into the curriculum. This study aimed to reveal to what extent global issues find their way into Turkish planning school agendas in an environment where more pressing matters threaten the quality of education. To look further into this issue, all documents published by TUPOB (Türkiye Planning Schools Association) since its foundation were analyzed, and seven in-depth interviews with TUPOB members were conducted. A predominantly qualitative approach was utilized. The findings suggest that the lack of resources is the most critical problem for urban planning schools, followed by insufficient teaching faculty. The curriculum updates and integration of global issues such as climate change and urban poverty come later in the priorities list. This research showed that concerns regarding resources and lack of standards take precedence over global discussions in planning curricula.