CoHE Makes Changes in International Student Quotas for Universities

May 6, 2019

The Council of Higher Education made a new decision on the international student quotas of Turkish higher education institutions.

According to the new decision, the limitation of accepting international students up to 50% of the number of quotas for the programs listed in the guide for the Higher Education Institutions Exam (YKS) was removed. This new arrangement will apply to all state and foundation universities.

From now on, the requests of universities for program quotas for international students will be communicated to the Council of Higher Education without being subject to the quota limitation until the date to be determined before the start of each academic year .CoHE will evaluate these requests, make decisions and notify the universities of the decisions.

There are some exceptions to Medicine and Dentistry programs

Medicine and Dentistry programs will have some exceptional conditions because of the different aspects of these fields. The international student quotas of these two programs will be limited to 50% of the number of quotas, which are listed in the YKS guide the previous year. However, universities, which meet certain conditions and criteria, will be able to accept students above the limitation in these two programs by opening a course for international students. These courses will need to meet certain conditions for internships, clinical practices, laboratories and equipment, and criteria for the educational environment. The audit reports of higher education institutions for the previous year and the existence of possible sanctions that could have been imposed on the universities will also be taken into consideration. These additional courses will be audited at least once a year.

It was stated that medicine and dentistry programs have received the highest number of applications from international students in comparison to Turkish students in recent years. The reason for having these exceptional conditions for medicine and dentistry programs was stated as the possible risk of offering low-quality education to Turkish students as these programs tend to have Turkish students fewer than international students.

In addition, it was noted that the other programs would also be evaluated and audited according to education quality and infrastructure.

Source : Turkish Council of Higher Education