What Do the Names of Higher Education Institutions in Turkey and the UK Imply?

Ebru Öztekin Bıyıklı,Gökhan Ersoy,Tuba Demirkol,Armağan Erdoğan

doi:10.15390/eb.2016.6159

Ebru Öztekin Bıyıklı, Gökhan Ersoy + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.15390/eb.2016.6159

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Abstract

Higher education is a growing field in which universities pursue better worldwide reputations. Although academic success is doubtless the most crucial element of a university’s quality and worldwide image, university names also influence universities’ functions and reputations. This article is based on a project named “World Higher Education Institutions Name Map” at Social Sciences University of Ankara, Center for Higher Education Research. The project was primarily inspired by curiosity about which motives have influenced higher education institutions as they choose their names and whether it could be possible to detect any country-based tendencies in these choices. The data were gathered relying primarily on information elicited from the official websites of various countries’ higher education institutions. This article will focus on preliminary findings based on the data and will provide a comparative analysis of the names of higher education institutions in Turkey and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has been chosen because it has several long-established universities and is one of the leading countries in the field of higher education. Turkey has been included because it has a variety of higher education institutions ranging from the old to the very recent.

Highlights

Unlike lower levels of education, higher education has a substantial impact on both individuals and societies (White, 1997)
Whereas admission to higher education in the UK is operated by UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admission Service), in Turkey YÖK (Council of Higher Education) and ÖSYM (Student Selection and Placement Center) are responsible for defining and operating the access process (Çetinsaya, 2014)
This paper focused on a topic involving an under-researched aspect of higher education

Summary

Introduction

Unlike lower levels of education, higher education has a substantial impact on both individuals and societies (White, 1997). Higher education evolved from being a privilege for elite and restricted beneficiaries to servicing a mass population after the 20th century. Higher Education Institutions (hereafter HEIs) are complex institutions that are fundamental to cultural life, economic prosperity, social cohesion and national identity (Anderson, 2006). With the technological and global developments of the 21st century, higher education has become integrated with nations’ economic plans because it prepares human resources for the conditions of the 21st century (Cortese, 2003). Parents, employers and other related stakeholders seek affiliation with more prestigious institutions. One question that arises relates to the factors that contribute to the prestige of HEIs

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