Scientific level in Turkey and targets

The economy is recovering but for this recovery to be permanent, structural reforms must be made, according to many experts. This is what the World Bank is saying. So is the head of the Turkish Business and Industry Association (TÜSİAD), Erol Bilecik: "We have reached the end of growth based on loans or abundance of liquidity in the Turkish economy."

What should follow this, if we do not want to fall into the middle income trap, is an increase in productivity, technology and the size of the educated workforce.  

At a bell-ringing ceremony at Borsa Istanbul, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, "We have failed on education and culture policies, as well as the decrease of the real interest rate; this is a self-criticism."

The interest rate is not my theme but I would like to make a reminder from history. At the time of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, the interest rate was around 12 percent in line with Shaykh al-Islam Ebussuud Efendi's fatwa, while it was around 3 to 4 percent in mercantilist Europe. The reason was, indeed, not that the Ottomans thrived on interest rates. The reason was, as economic historian Mehmet Genç has explained in his excellent book "State and Economy in the Ottoman Empire," unproductivity and inadequate capital accumulation.

Especially in our times, it is education that is key to productivity based on technology and a trained workforce.

Iran ahead of us

When the subject is education, science and university, countries such as South Korea are so successful that they seem like a farfetched dream for us…

For this reason, I am comparing us with Iran. According to internationally recognized Scientific Journal Rankings data, Iran was 34th in the scientific...