One of Turkey’s education agency associations, UED, organised a national TV appearance for one of its directors to boost the reputation of education agencies in the sector. Gülcin Taskin, a UED director, appeared on education news show Tercih Başarı on the TGRT Haber channel recently, where she answered questions about how agents help students achieve their educational goals abroad.
“The media is always a good channel for us to make people understand our aim about protecting students’ rights, educators’ rights and of course our rights,” said Taskin after the show.
An estimated 45,000 Turkish students studied abroad last year, and according to a recent British Council survey, more than 40% of students said they would use an agent – higher than much of Europe and Latin America.
However, no accreditation scheme exists for Turkey’s estimated 250 agencies and distrust or lack of knowledge about what they do persists. In a UED survey of 3,000 students in 2010 and 2011, while 54% of those surveyed said that agents were necessary and 39% said they were absolutely necessary, 64% of respondents indicated that “only a few agents are trustworthy” and 61% felt that “only a few agents have sufficient knowledge and experience”.
Only 19% of students said they felt the role of an agent association was to help solve student complaints.
“Due to a huge young population in Turkey, many young people cannot even reach education counsellors directly, or have never heard about the different programmes and opportunities we offer for them,” Taskin said.
Gokhan Islamoglu, Coordinator at UED, said, “I really believe this [TV appearance] is important because it also shows why UED must exist; students need agents but there is a lack of trust.”
This month it visited all 17 members of Feltom
UED has had a busy schedule in the last two months, holding training seminars in Turkey and attending FELCA and GAELA meetings. This month it visited all 17 members of Feltom, the Maltese language school association, in Malta, which it considers a priority destination for Turks studying English.
“Even though joining the Schengen Visa Area has caused a sharp decrease in student numbers [to Malta] in the last two years, all at UED see the potential of language schools in Malta,” Islamoglu said.
