Role of neoliberal state of turkey regarding structural and functional transformation in higher education: Case study of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Universty

As a consequence of structural crisis of capitalism in the 1970s, neoliberalism denotes the transformation of social welfare state into a regulatory, efficient, governance-based model. With the implementation of this model in Turkey during post-1980s, higher education, once provided predominantly as a public service, has been subject to major functional and structural changes.With the onset of neoliberal policies, higher education is transformed in function, structure and mechanism, losing public service function in effect. This study, considering the transformation of the role of state, underlines the impact of neoliberal policies on higher education. In this respect, academicians are interviewed to conduct an in-depth analysis of this impact. Therefore academicians of Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University tackled the question of how neoliberalism transformed Turkish universities in terms of functionality and university concept.Survey on academicians is descriptive and conducted with qualitative research method. Survey is conducted on 15 academicians from 9 faculties. Academicians stated that important changes took place in universities with the implementation of neoliberal policies. According to survey results, an important majority of academicians expressed that only prestigious and long-established universities of Turkey are compatible with their own ideal definition of university. Moreover they state that few of the universities conduct researches, aim of which are driven by market needs while rest of the universities are merely functioning as an employment unit and academicians are forced to act like entrepreneurs as a result of reduction in public funds.Keywords: Capitalism, Neoliberalism, Neoliberal policies, Higher Education, Higher Education in Turkey University