Turkey’s Ministry of National Education Study-Abroad Program: Is the MoNE Making the Most of Its Investment?

To answer an overwhelming demand for university faculty, Turkey’s Ministry of National Education (MoNE) developed a scholarship program to sponsor graduate study abroad. After completion, program recipients are expected to serve in Turkey’s universities. However, the cost of the program relative to the contributions of returning scholars has led to tremendous criticism. In order to explore whether this program is truly worth the investment, the author chose a qualitative research design to investigate the experiences of two program beneficiaries. The results revealed that their contributions were minimized by numerous institutional barriers; consequently, the system was unable to fully benefit from their expertise. The author concluded that the elimination of obstacles inherent in Turkish higher education was necessary to realize the goals of MoNE’s graduate study program