More on Turkish Youth Unemployment
Eren Ocakverdi of Yapi Kredi Research kindly answered yesterday’s question (although his words were not very kind at all, more on that later) on youth unemployment with a string of detailed comments below the blog post (As my usual practice, I am not editing the comments):
“My comment was written in somewhere else and for someone else. It was intended to be seen only for a certain group of people. So, you should have asked me before moving it to your blog and making it public.
The comment was only a “personal opinion” based on “personal” observations and experience. Myself is also an over-educated Turk (according to the article) and come from a long line of teachers who have been serving at all stages of our education system (i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary), but I cannot (and do not) classify myself as an expert on the issue.
And I am well aware of all the points that the article mentions, as they were brought up many many times during my TURKONFED consulting work on vocational education-business relationships. I worked with international higher education data and compared Turkish universities with those of other developing and developed countries in the world in my graduation thesis (BSc). Still, I cannot (and do not) consider myself as an expert on the issue.
Fortunately, I do not have a reputation of “knowing too much about too many things”, and would like to keep it that way. If you truly had wanted to have my “personal” opinion on the subject, then you would have sent me an e-mail or simply called me on the phone as you did several times on different occasions.
As you know very well, I prefer to do some (scientific) research and build a proper analytical framework before participating into a discussion or writing a research note. I refrain from jumping to conclusions unless I am able to back my ideas with some concrete analysis. The same principle applies here, so I should only elaborate on my “very subjective” point of views on the subject.
You definitely did misunderstand me on my point on PISA scores. Here is my simple logic: Students with high PISA scores tends to go the college. We do not have too many students with sufficient (not even high) PISA scores. However, we do have too many college graduates. So at some point, universities must accept the fact that not all of their students have basic cognitive skills required for a formal college education.
My point on over-education and duration does not fit into that picture, simply because it tries to find an answer to a completely different question. The article implicitly questions why over-educated (whatever that means) young Turks are not able to find jobs in their field of specialty. Since over-education guarantees only long years of schooling (duration) not over-qualification, then it could mean that there is more to it than meets the eye.
Barely a month ago, there was news about South Korean president Lee Myung-bak attempting to discourage students from going to college. He said that about 82 percent of South Korean high school grads headed to college, but there weren’t enough jobs that require a degree or pay enough to justify the expense. He stated that:” reckless entrance into college is bringing huge losses to families and the country alike.” They believe that “South Korean students are told that if they graduate from college, they’re assured of a bright future and high-paying job. Then, they find themselves unemployed”. Sounds familiar? Despite all the educational success, The South Korean government is now desperately trying to change the societal notion that success requires a college degree. So it might be an interesting case to look at…
Structural and regulatory problems do not (and cannot) explain the whole picture. Maybe there are few more questions to be raised: Why do we have many Business Administration departments, but not enough Mathematical Engineering departments? How do universities decide to open a department? Do they take into account the potential demand for their graduates? To what degree our students were aware of the consequences of their choices for college? Why a Mechatronics Engineer prefers to work as a sales representative in a FMCG company? Why a graduate with an Economics background expects to find a job in Public Relations field in the first place? How many jobs in the market genuinely require a formal college education? So on so forth…
The issue at hand is quite complicated than one can think and goes beyond the rigidities in the labor market. I think I have said enough to explain my very very subjective opinions. I do not want to continue this discussion over your blog, so please send me an e-mail or call me if you have any further questions or comments on my “personal thoughts”. Otherwise, I really have no time for this…“
My open letter to Eren is below. I do not see why this exchange should be carried to an email or phone call, as Eren is asking, since some readers might want to know my take on his issues. There are two types of remarks that require a response, personal and economics. I’ll start with the personal:
First of all, I would like to apologize for having put your comment here in the first place. FYI, I am very careful with these things. In your case, I did not ask for your permission since you had written to a very public platform: Anyone, not just my Linked contacts, more than half I don’t know personally BTW, can see my posts and your comments. Since you had posted in a public platform, I did not see any problems in quoting it in another, just like the other guy whom I quoted, as he had posted publicly (in Twitter) as well.
Besides, you seem to think that “I had not truly wanted to have your personal opinion on the subject”. Then, please enlighten me, as I have no f—ing clue why you think I posted your comments. FYI, it was because I usually get different angles and radical thoughts from Yapi Kredi Research and especially you, and I wanted all the readers to see your views as well.
But pursuing your logic, I could argue that if you had truly wanted to continue this in private conversation/emails, you could have sent me an email/SMS and I would have taken off the post, or at least your quotes, right away. I thought about doing that anyway, but since you had explained your comments in such a detailed manner, I chose to keep the post (and your comments).
I also should say I am truly disappointed with the tone in your remarks, especially the last sentence, which has the aura of looking down upon someone commonly found in many Yapi Kredi weeklies, especially the ones when some economist or other is criticized, without even bothering to reveal my her name. So I guess I should congratulate you for fitting in and also for carrying over that style to other platforms…
BTW, I have some small piece of advice for you. Not that I think I am smarter or a better economist than you. On the contrary, as I have said many times, I have the utmost respect for your work. But I might have slightly more experience than you as an economist because of my age. So here’s my five cents: There is nothing wrong with subjective opinion. It is good that you “prefer to do some (scientific) research and build a proper analytical framework before participating into a discussion or writing a research note.”; in fact, that’s what I really like about your work. But there is nothing wrong with voicing a subjective opinion from time to time. And you don’t need to run 1,000 regression or write an AER paper to do that (BTW, those regressions and models do not make you any smarter or wiser; but that’s a topic for a future post). Therefore, I am very glad that you shared your comments. Despite you seem not to think that way, I too do not claim to “know too much about too many things”, but here are my subjective remarks to your subjective comments:
Now that you have written in detail, I see your points and agree with most of them. Since you have done similar work as my World Bank consulting project, I am sure you have some idea on all the answers to all the questions you have raised- most of them are in the WB Report as well (although I would never claim they are the ultimate answers), in case you are interested. That’s why I defined two broad categories in the blog post. All the points you are raising are part of the second broad category, which would include, other than business-university relationships and supply demand mismatches, incentive problems and of course the Higher Education Board, among many other things…
One point I would beg to disagree, however, is college education: I prefer the American model, where anyone willing should be able to get a college education. But then all colleges should not aspire to be research universities, and they won’t, if they are led by market forces rather than the government or the Higher Education Board. It is no wonder that graduates of Ozyegin University or Cappodocia MYO are placed well, even though these institutions are not as prestigious as Koc, Sabanci, Bosphorus or METU.
BTW, I would really like to read your TURKONFED piece; I would appreciate if you could send me the link for that or email me the whole report.
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