The future of Turkish universities: A qualitative analysis of the strategic plans of state and foundation universities

The purpose of this study is to analyse the items in strength, weakness, opportunity, threat (SWOT) analyses of universities' strategic plans within the scope of system elements. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were studied in relation to input, processing, output, feedback and environment. In the study, which is a document analysis model, the case study technique, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The study group consists of a total of 18 universities, 12 of which are state universities and 6 of which are foundation universities, determined by simple random sampling method. Content analysis method was used to analyse the data. As a result of the research, according to the system elements, there are statements about the environment element at the highest rate, followed by input, processing, and output and feedback elements respectively. When SWOT analyses are examined, the themes of infrastructure, management in processing, service to the community in outputs, and processing as feedback have shown dominance in inputs as strengths. As weaknesses, infrastructure in inputs, management in processing, and research in outputs are dominant. In feedbacks, themes related to processing are dominant. It has been observed that the opportunities that universities have are mostly stemming from the local environment and the threats from the national environment. It was concluded that there are opportunities from the economic environment at the local level and threats from political processes at the national level. Some suggestions developed in line with the results of the research are as follows: SWOT analyses should be prepared by avoiding ambiguous statements, more understandable items should be written, and they should be reviewed and updated at regular intervals. Analyses should be kept dynamic to adapt to changes in the university's internal and external environment. Strategic plans should be developed by encouraging the participation of all stakeholders. Universities should evaluate themselves more objectively when preparing SWOT analyses.