A comparative study on the educational views and philosophy of education of Nurettin Topçu and Hilmi Ziya Ülken

Although different definitions of education have been put forward, it is generally referred as the change in behaviors and the commonly accepted view is that education can develop and change the people. In addition to this, education has been given by taking into consideration of the wishes of learners in recent years. From this perception, education can be defined as the effort and responsibility of auto-training. Humans educate themselves throughout their life-time by converting their capacity into competency that is by gaining knowledge, skill and attitudes. The auto-training of humans is product of willingness to learn which exists at birth and continues in their life time, making people live with education all through their life-time.The fundamental aim of educational thinkers is to learn what is to learn and what are the requirements to achieve this. They are interested in the nature of reality, source of values and the meaning of these for education. In this context, philosophy of education can be defined as the search for aims related to attitudes and behaviors expected to be developed on students through formal schooling. However researching the subject and sources of aims of education process is not an easy task. This task includes a detailed investigation of the main problems of culture and traditions of humans by researching the biological, psychological and historical nature of humans. All societies should seriously think on their educational institutions and national education and plan, structure and run these according to their realities. In other words, those who think on education, should primarily be interested in the future of primary, secondary and higher education of their own societies. When considered the recent history of Turkish education, many thinkers who were interested in these subjects can be encountered. Among those thinkers, Mustafa Satı Bey, Emrullah Efendi, Münif Paşa, İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, M. Şemseddin Günaltay, Ethem Nejdet, Mehmet Emin Erişirgil, Hilmi Ziya Ülken, Avni Başman, Mümtaz Turhan, Erol Güngör and Nurettin Topçu are the leading ones. Nurettin Topçu and Hilmi Ziya Ülken support the idea that reforms should begin from universities which has started with Emrullah Efendi and continued with Ziya Gökalp, Mümtaz Turhan and Erol Güngör.There are many differences along with similarities of the educational approaches and views of Nurettin Topçu and Hilmi Ziya Ülken. In both of the views of the thinkers, the idea that education is for the sake of state and nation, which was the fundamental characteristic of education view of modernity leading the education in the Republican period was effective.Both thinkers focused on the education of physical, intellectual and moral. Though Topçu avoided from pedagogy, he investigated education from three points: physical, intellectual and moral education. According to him, the physical, intellectual and moral capabilities of humans can only be achieved with education. This idea is one of the basic philosophies of Ülken. He expressed that the purpose of education is to equip the individual with some ideas and experiences in order to make him/her perfect in terms of physical, intellectual and moral capacities. He also stressed that social pedagogical approaches of the West should be benefitted.Both intellectuals think that the development of the country can be achieved through science. Science, technique and the education system are the main elements of the development of a country. In order to strengthen the societal structure and develop in science and technique, societal problems should first be well-determined. Knowing the problem is the first requirement for the solution. After determining the problems, there is a need for an expert team consisted of scientists who can analyze and solve the problem and a political and administrative community who are educated in the same science manner. The other common points in these thinkers are the necessity of religion and moral education, the idea that education stars with the family, the implementation of co-education all through the country and the qualifications of ideal teacher.In this study, some differences in the opinions of Nurettin Topçu and Hilmi Ziya Ülken were determined. Hilmi Ziya Ülken claims that the science mentality of the West can be adopted without leaving the culture of our own country and methods and experiences of the West related to the training of teachers and solving the accommodation problems of students can be benefited. However, Nurettin Topçu is against the adoption of the science and science method of the West. According to him, without developing a local science method and conceptual structure, it is impossible to make a real stride in education.It can be seen that the ideas and views of Nurettin Topçu and Hilmi Ziya Ülken on the education were partly effective in the educational programs and applications after 1970s. The opinions of Nurettin Topçu that teaching should be a profession and an examination should be conducted to those who want to be a teacher after taking their Bachelor Degree and the opinions of Hilmi Ziya Ülken that teachers should have an examination by a council gives the signs of todays? KPSS examination. The claim of Ülgen which is ?teachers cannot be trained haphazardly with a hasty course of forty-five days. For this reason, problems cannot be overcome without training the teachers seriously by establishing a teachers? school, faculty or university.? can be connected with the existence of todays? education faculties thatIt can be suggested that Ülgen and Topçu already discussed the subjects of education everywhere, life-long learning, education being the life itself, principle of proximity to life, concepts such as universality and equality which are the most important principles of todays? contemporary education and also leading principles of the new education program started in 2005.