This thesis analyses the effects of the Bologna Process on the implementation of Quality Assurance standards in Turkish higher education. Using a qualitative case study approach, this thesis explores the changes and policies that have been adopted to promote quality assurance at the institutional, national and international levels. In order to better understand how quality assurance systems are shaped within the Bologna Process, I conducted interviews with eight Turkish Bologna experts. The experts provided first-hand experience and knowledge of the QA systems implementation process. Further, I performed a detailed document analysis to examine the policies related to the quality assurance system. Through these methods, I uncovered a number of unique challenges faced by the Turkish higher education system in the implementation of a sound quality assurance system. One of the most significant challenges relates to the fact that the Council of Higher Education has still not established a fully functional national QA agency in accordance with the European Standard and Guidelines. This discrepancy affects the implementation of a uniform QA system at all levels. The findings suggest that the Bologna Process, which aims to improve transparency in the European Higher Education Area, has had positive impact on QA systems in Turkish HE. The positive effects demonstrate the capacity of the Turkish HE to respond to an increasing need for a highly qualified workforce. With an improved adaptability on the part of the institutions, graduates of Turkish universities will be able to comparably compete with those from other European institutions. / Graduate / 0745 / 0515 / sbugday@uvic.ca

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This thesis studies the relative efficiencies of public and private universities in Turkish higher education system in producing human capital output for the economy in 1998-2002 period, by aiming at to propose a resource allocation policy for the realm of higher education to be pursued by the government. For this purpose, it develops a model which is built on the academic quality and per student expenditure variables of the public and private universities in producing human capital output, and calibrates it with Turkish higher education data. The results of the calibrated model have revealed that the resources devoted to higher education were allocated inefficiently between the public and private universities in Turkish higher education system in the above mentioned period. It is shown that the implementation of the government policy, which is proposed by study, helps the higher education market approach to Pareto optimum allocation of higher educational resources between public and private universities.