Our UGM Corporate Communications Director Sami Altınkaya's article entitled "The Way Out is vocational and technical education" was published in the Dünya newspaper on 23.11.2020.

We talk with Ankara Chamber of Industry (ASO) President Nurettin Özdebir about how to achieve transformation in vocational and technical education.

Noting that industrialization has been set as the first goal for economic development and prosperity since the foundation of our Republic, Özdebir says that vocational and technical education is the focus of both governments and the business world due to its close relationship with the development and prosperity of countries. Stating that they have implemented many projects with this awareness, Özdebir emphasizes that they are in constant cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

Nurettin Özdebir said that; “As of today, vocational and technical education (MTE) is at a crossroads. As traditional knowledge and skills acquired in MTE have difficult to meet the knowledge and skills requested by the new era, MTE has become more questionable. In seven headings determined by the Ministry of Education's Vision 2023 roadmap in education it is aimed to build a dynamic MTE structure that takes into account the requirements of the 4^th Industrial Revolution and digital transformation, considers the socio-economic structure of the country and provides a transformation that is a vision of the future, based on past experiences in solving existing problems.

In the education-employment-production relationship, which is one of these goals, past experiences should be used and the same mistakes should not be repeated. In order to correct the social perception about vocational technical education, signage should not be associated with applications. School names, area and department names have been renewed many times in the past. For example, the name of the woodworking department became furniture interior architecture, and the clothing department was named fashion design. The schools were renamed. However, there was no significant improvement in student flow and social perception. ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎

The criticisms made about MTE to this day have been based on the axis that the main problem of the current problems is the education system. In other words, employment that is incompatible with the demands of curriculum, school supplies, lack of hardware, lack of experience of teachers in the job market, insufficient guidance or low academic skills of the students that were involved in this education and solution recommendations with limited approach missing a holistic structure has not given any positive outcome.”