MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

public university in ankara, turkey.

Founded in 1959 as a joint project between the Turkish government and the United Nations, Middle East Technical University (METU) was the first English-language university in Turkey. It comprises faculties of economics and administrative sciences, architecture, education, engineering, and arts and sciences; it also has the School of Foreign Languages and the Institute of Marine Sciences. In 2002 it had a teaching staff of 1,600 and 19,154 students (about 37 percent female).

METU was envisaged as bringing to Turkey American methods of education and organization rather than the European methods practiced at the older Istanbul University and Ankara University. Instruction in English was expected to provide excellent language training for local students and also to enable students from other countries of the region to attend the university. In its early development, it received considerable financial support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Central Treaty Organization. Its governance, too, resembled that of an American state university, unlike the other universities where a board of trustees, appointed by the Turkish government, appointed the university president and the deans.

see also ankara university; istanbul university.

Bibliography

Higher Education in Turkey. UNESCO, European Centre for Higher Education. December 1990.

The World of Learning, 2000. Available at <http://www.worldoflearning.com>.

i. metin kunt
updated by eric hooglund