Dear Members, Sector Stakeholders, Members of the Press, Parents and Dear Students,
As the International Education Consultants Association (UED), we have been operating in the overseas education sector since 2001 to bring service quality to the best standards. UED is an official association that brings together overseas education consultancy firms that are experts in their fields, reliable, have high experience and knowledge, and have achieved high standards in terms of both their employees and the overseas education institutions they are in contact with. 32 overseas education consultancy firms that are members of UED have been operating in the sector for many years and provide consultancy services to a significant portion of students who will go abroad for education from Turkey. Our association has been selected as the “World’s Best Overseas Education Agency Association” 4 times at the Study Travel Star Awards, where the winners are determined by the votes of the educational institutions abroad, and has been deemed worthy of this prestigious award in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2022.
Following the amendment made to the Regulation on Recognition and Equivalence of Higher Education Council Foreign Higher Education Diplomas published in the Official Gazette dated 15/03/2024 and numbered 32490, many phone calls and e-mails have been received by both our association and our member companies, and in accordance with the decision taken by our Board of Directors, it has become necessary to inform the public about the issue.
According to the regulation in question, graduates who completed their secondary education in Turkey will be required to submit an exam result document showing that they have met the minimum success ranking requirement for the relevant program in the YKS exam in the year they registered to a higher education institution abroad, in their equivalence applications for programs that require a success ranking requirement in Turkey (Medicine, Engineering, Law, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Architecture, Teaching). Again, according to the regulation, the decisions taken entered into force on the date of the regulation’s publication.
There are four main problems at this stage;
1. Students who will study abroad but have not registered for YKS were not able to register because YKS registrations closed on 07/03/2024.
2. Even if ÖSYM opens an additional registration date, the students in question do not have enough time to prepare for the YKS. All of the students who plan to receive their undergraduate education abroad have applied to universities abroad, most of them have even received their pre-acceptances, and while there is less than three months left for the YKS, the publication of the regulation in question has left many students in a difficult situation. There is not enough time for these students to prepare for the YKS in the short time ahead and to meet the required minimum success ranking requirements.
3. The education provided in Foreign Private Schools, Minority Schools and International Schools established in our country and the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program students do not receive education suitable for the YKS exam content. It is very difficult for these students to prepare for the YKS exam in addition to their existing education programs.
4. As can be understood from the regulation in question, even students who will graduate from departments that require a minimum success ranking in Turkey, of universities with the highest world rankings abroad, will not be able to receive equivalence for their diplomas if they fail to meet the minimum success ranking requirements of the relevant programs in the YKS in the year they registered at the relevant universities.
We believe that the Council of Higher Education aims to take stricter control over the equivalence processes of diplomas received from countries with low educational standards and questionable graduation issues with the regulation in question, and we consider this an approach to be appreciated. However, while this is being done, the equivalence process of diplomas received from prestigious universities in countries such as England, Germany, France, Italy, USA, Canada, which are among the most developed countries in the world (G7), has also been made more difficult, and even equivalence has been made almost impossible for the departments of Medicine, Law, Pharmacy and Dentistry, which require a minimum success ranking.
In order for a fundamental right and freedom to be interfered with by a legal regulation, the provision of the legislation must be accessible to the relevant persons and its effects must be foreseeable. As is known, in order to achieve a certain success ranking in the YKS exam, students choose high schools for this exam and start preparing for the exam at least one year in advance. Considering that there are two and a half months left for the YKS exam, it does not seem possible to make this preparation. We believe that the unpredictable change in question should not be implemented for students who have applied or are in the process of applying to start universities abroad in 2024. It would be appropriate for the YÖK to re-evaluate the relevant regulation and make the necessary revisions.
Our signed letter, which includes our recommendation to revise the regulation for the reasons mentioned above, was delivered to YÖK on 22/03/2024.
We would like to inform you that we will be following this issue closely, which closely concerns hundreds of thousands of students who plan to continue their undergraduate education abroad in the future; who graduated from high school in previous years, who will graduate from high school this year, who are currently studying in high school and who will make their high school choices this year, and therefore their parents, and that we will continue to inform the public about the developments.
Kind regards,
Eren Göker
The Association of International Educational Counselors Turkey (UED) President