Turkey and International Education

Last night, at dinner, I engaged in conversation with the Australian Ambassador to Turkey, Ian Higgs and one or two other knowledgeable people including in particular Murat Ersavci, the former Turkish Ambassador to Australia and his wife Zeynep. Murat and Zeynep are old friends with whom we are staying in their apartment in Ankara. Also present was Ilker Ersil (iersil@vokaliz.com) the Managing Director of Vokaliz, a cultural management organisation. Incidentally, I found a shared interest in choral singing with both Ilker and the Ambassador.

All expressed concern that whilst the odd academic and international representative from Australian higher education came through Ankara from time to time (Ian Young, Vice Chancellor of ANU) arrives next week) there seemed to be little interest amongst Australian institutions in recruiting from the Turkish market in a cohesive way. A few years ago I raised in a plenary session of the Australian International Education Conference, the prospects in Turkey on the grounds that universities needed to diversify their market countries to accommodate variability in market conditions, especially as for various reasons numbers and market share fell away in one or more countries.  My suggestions were dismissed rather peremptorily by the so-called experts.  Turks, the said were only interested in immigration.

In support of my view on the market, I read in a Turkish agents report that teenagers 'make up 30% of Turkey's population, two times higher than the EU average. In 2010, over 1.5 million students took the National University Placement Exam and only 327,869 students were placed in a four-year university in Turkey. Turkish students are [therefore] looking to foreign institutions for admission.'

As indicated, however, more detailed study is required.

I think they were wrong, patently so in respect of fondness for immigration to Australia - a point made nicely by Ian in a short speech of introduction to the evening. I think that at least the Turkish market deserves a fresh look.  I was encouraged in this view by Ian.

There is now a wider context: 2015 is the one hundredth anniversary of the first landings of Anzac troops at Gallipoli.  A series of cultural celebrations are planned throughout the year by the Embassy. Australia is determined that the celebrations should be about more than Gallipoli.  No doubt, a decent group of Australian  international educators may be interested in visiting the country in 2015, which combined with the celebrations might not provide an impetus for a university education exhibition. By organising such an exhibition, IDP would be making a singular contribution to the celebrations and broadening their focus.

No doubt more ground work on the character of the market is needed by I have been impressed by the economic and social progress achieved in Turkey. Whilst the number of universities in the country has increased so too has the burgeoning middle class, all with the ambition for a higher education.  The children of domestic staff now aspire for a university education as we found upon enquiry.  There will be the usual areas of interest such as commerce and business but I suspect that some specialist areas, where capacity in Turkey is probably still limited, might also be prospective for recruitment.

I have made a number of contacts here in Turkey and I am prepared to continue to explore the market.  No doubt, there will be private agents keen to work with me but I emailed Andrew Thomson, the chief executive of IDP, to say thought I should, out of loyalty, test his interest first.

A Walk Downtown in Ankara

On Wednesday morning, we walk down to Tunali Hilmi and take shelter from a light rain-shower in a modern coffee shop that serves sweet cakes and pastries. The crowd includes a young couple in modern dress cuddling up next to each other in a lovers' lounge and older women some with head scarves but mostly bareheaded. Quality  and numbers of shops in this part of Ankara are like Manuka on steroids.

We come across Tunali Hilmi and turn left towards Kizilay. Once we reach Attaturk Boulevarde, we turn right and within a few blocks reach the Grand Ankara Hotel now part of the Rixos Group. As it was after 12.00 by the time we reached it, we decide to lunch here for old times sake in spite of the high prices - we share one serving of shish tavuk at 33 liras.

It is quiet and unrushed. The waitress removes a reserved sign from a table with comfortable club chairs when we show interest in it. We enjoy olives and tapanard on bread and cool water whilst we wait

The chefs, all men, in their tall hats have not changed, says Sharon. I take a photograph with my i-phone.

I ask permission first but the chefs readily agree to the photograph.  We shared a chicken shish and a salad.

We walked back after lunch, uphill all the way to the apartment.

I am greatly encouraged by the interest being shown in the Crawford Fund by the Turkish authorities and research institutions in general and by alumni in particular. Tomorrow, I am to be the guest of the Turkish 'gene bank' on the initiative of a former Crawford Fund sponsored trainee.

Wednesday has dawned as a beautiful day in Ankara: partially cloudy sky, occasional rain showers, temperature a pleasant 12 degrees. From our apartment we can see for miles to where the city extends east towards Eskisehir and in side view to the north and the south: a modern vibrant city with a booming middle class.

We visited the Anatolian Museum in the old city (Ulus) and traced the history from Assyrian and Hittite eras through Phrygian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman times.

A selection of snaps from the Anatolian Museum

In Ankara

We transited from the international to domestic terminal at Istanbul without difficulty ad were soon on our way to Ankara. With the help of  a friendly taxi driver and a telephone call or two to Zeynep we arrived safely at the Ersavci residence.

Ankara is staggeringly bigger than it was 40 years ago. So much so that from the air it seemed to have several centres, including an entirely new settlement to the west on the road to Eskisehir. The drive from the airport, along a twin carriageway that contrasted sharply with our first ride in from the airport in 1972, took about 30 minutes.

The extent of growth became clearer on Tuesday morning when we awoke to a warm but cloudy day. We could see from the vantage point of the Ersavci's 8th floor apartment a grand vista to the West, the enormous build up of apartments beyond Cankaya.

A View From the 8th Floor

We went on an orientation tour in Murat's car. One place that was firmly registered n our recollection of Ankara was 11/11 Enis Behic Koryurek, our apartment in Ankara. We recalled that the Russian Embassy was down one end of our street and a street called Vali Dr Resit at the other.  To our great joy and surprise our apartment is still there.  We noticed that the balcony on our fourth floor  apartment,  which we had crudely enclosed with fly wire was now neatly glassed in. Our was the only one so treated and we like to think that the glass was installed in succession to our primitive effort.

Our apartment in Ankara 1972/1973

We posed for photographs in front of the apartment block and a pink blossom tree, showing Spring had arrived in Ankara if not in England.

Sunset Over Ankara - the view from apartment window as the sun sets over  growing city

William Dalrymple at the Festival

At Dalrymples talk at the Oxford Literary Festival after waiting in the snow for a bus; being driven comfortably enough from Wallingford to Oxford on the X40; and then queuing for five minutes or so before gaining entry to the Sheldonian to hear him.

So, I was not in a good mood when I shuffled into the cheapest seats in the back row - flat boards with no backrest.

But Dalrymple was a good story teller albeit with a somewhat loud and grating delivery.  He described the debacle of the first Afghan War, driven by the greed of the East India Company and its shareholders; the drawing room arguments of a conservative right wing in the UK; an army  and led by incompetents and supported by a British Government that ignored intelligence that said the great rival Imperial Russia was nowhere near the Afghan borders but chose to act on a single piece of evidence of the sighting of a troop of Cossacks.

The British Invasion was initially successful in spite of losses incurred due to heat not enemy bullets. One year of peace and polo followed the installation of a puppet king. The right wing celebrated and scoffed at liberal wets. The army relaxed in its indefensible cantonment. But then the spark of a single indiscretion, by a British officer with a young woman claimed by a tribal leader, set alight a massacre and a disorganised retreat of the British . And the rest is history.

It was Dalrymple's guess that Afghanistan would descend into a form of civil war with the Taliban strong in rural districts in the south and a government and its tribal allies ensconced in growing, modernizing urban areas and Internet savvy youth around increasingly populous cities, and in the north. The Chinese, he thought, already deeply invested in mineral activities backed up by spending on road and rail to service its mines, would  'conquer' the  country without firing a single shot. Hmm.

As I say, a good story teller but  an analyst of uncertain quality.  I wouldn't know.

Saturday 24 March - Snowing in Wallingford

It is snowing in Wallingford. As I tweeted this morning, one does not come to England for the weather, even in March.  It was nice to get a tweet in response from Sam Brannan who was my secretary when I was at CABI, welcoming us back to Wallingford.  The snow began as tiny flakes blown aimlessly by the light wind; at one stage it looked like turning into sleet or wet snow, which would have been disappointing; but now as I write the flakes are bigger and settling on the windscreens of cars. So, I am staying in this morning attending to my blog.

I am re-reading William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain, for two reasons: first, because I am this afternoon, snow storm permitting, going to a talk by him at the Oxford Literary Festival and a former neighbour has asked me to get him to sign her copy of the book, which she has leant me; and secondly, of course, because we are embarking on part of the journey he writes about in the book.

He visited Mount Athos and then Istanbul before heading further east to Ankara and Diyabakir.  He is a good writer but methinks a little unfair or outdated in his views on the Turks.  I was captured though by his description of Aya Sophia:

At the end of the Hippodrome, then as now, rises the great dome of Justinian's Hagia Sophia, the supreme masterpiece of Byzantine architecture, and still, in the eyes of many, the most beautiful church ever built. No other Christian building is so successful in transporting one to the threshold of the another world or so dazzlingly intimates the the imminence of the transcendent.

His description of coach rides and endless supplies of eau de cologne (more accurately, rosewater) splashed over customers to refresh them rang true. We remember stinking of the stuff. But his claim that 'rural Turks' had built a splendid and modern hotel in Ankara, the Buyuk Ankara Oteli, and allowed it to run down clashed with our memory of the place, which was our home for two months in 1972.  We shall have to check on it when we return to Ankara after 41years on Monday.

The snow flakes are getting small, and wet, again. Kathy Mansfield has promised to send me a photograph of the snow, for the blog.

Oxford Literary Festival

One of the privileges of staying so close to Oxford is the ease with which one can attend interesting events at Oxford University. We are in town at the time of the Oxford Literary Festival so on Thursday I caught the bus from Wallingford to Saint Aldgate and Christchurch College, which hosts the Box Office for the event.

I selected and paid for two discussions: The Spying Game with presenters R Jeffrey Jones, C Mulley and C Morgan Jones; and Universal Values - Are they the basis for World Order by Paddy Ashdown and World Order.

I arrived a little late at the Sheldonian (see photo taken on my i-phone) for the first event so had to sit in 'the naughty seats' in the dress circle beyond the reach of the moving microphones so, probably fortunately, was excluded from asking questions. I know a little, a very little, about the intelligence services so I was able to pick up on the presentations pretty quickly.

As the program notes, four writers approached the spying game from different angles. Professor Rhodi Jones is described as an authority on the CIA and although he made sense it was impossible to tell from what he said the level of his authority. He focused on the Anglo American intelligence relationship some of which I witnessed during my two years on the JIC in the early 80s.  Clare Mulley wrote The Spy Who Loved, the story of Christine Glanville a Polish national who spied for the  allies during the Second World War. She was indignant about the treatment of Glanville after the war. Mark Husband, the former security correspondent  from the Financial Times, wrote trading Secrets.  Chris Morgan Jones, who worked for Kroll described as the 'world's largest investigation company', wrote his debut novel An Agent of Deceit based on his experience of Russian affairs in industrial espionage.

Questions ranged from 'who controls the spies' thought to a quest for 'the truth about Roger Collis'.

By the 4.00 p.m. session with Paddy Ashdown and 'leading academic and writer on the middle east' Dr Eugene Rogan, I was seated in a front row. However, like Rogan, I was overwhelmed or intimidated by the presence and force of Ashdown and unlike Rogan I stayed quiet.  Rogan argued that there are culture specific values, values that differ across cultures, and for which people are prepared to fight and die.  Ashdown believes that there are values shared across the globe, around the concept of respect for the individual, and that these common interests will help us provide the governance in in a multi-polar world. Along the way, Ashdown reminded us that for every murderous outrage committed by an Islamist, there were ten committed by extremist Christians.

I read something today that makes me want to side with Ashdown. It is in a book by the philosopher Alain de Botton entitled Religion for Atheists.  He examines the great traditions and values of major religions and argues that although they have not evolved out of shared cultural origins they are a response to the universal needs of the human psyche. He illustrates his case with reference to characteristics such as kindness.  in this case he refers to longings for comfort that are real and innate but which have been legitimated by the qualities of key figures in religion: Mary in Christianity, Isis in ancient Egypt, Demeter in Greece, Venus in Rome and Guan Yin in China.  he says that the need for comfort 'has become too closely identified with a need for Mary herself instead of being seen for what it really is: an appetite which began long before the gospels, originating at the very moment when the first child was picked up by his or her mother and soothed amid the darkness and cold of the first underground cave.'

On Saturday, I shall go to a talk by William Dalrymple.

Wednesday it must be Wallingford.

I was struck by a great sense of joyful familiarity as we were driven from Reading to Wallingford yesterday by our good friend Kathy Mansfield - who took time off from the Oxford Literary Festival.

It seems colder than March of previous stays but much else remains the same.  More houses but still plenty of green space and farms.  Didcot still chuffing out smoke. Faint smell of wood fires in the street.   Waitrose dominates high street and its old store effectively vacant.

The Lime Tree on St John's Green is flourishing although there are worries about the depth of its roots. I played a role as head of CABI in advising that a Lime be selected to replace the old dying oak tree planted more than a 100 years ago so I take a bit of responsibility for its welfare. The old metal seat on the Green has been restored to its place of pride around the tree and a new plaque added to record its planting in December 2005.

Kites, reintroduced to Oxfordshire some twenty years ago, are now prolific but limited to the County.

Later, we walked around town and I spent some time in the Old Post Office (OPO) enjoying a coffee. Kathy Mansfield dropped in to spend some time by the fire and talking about highlights of the Festival with me searching for talks on the science/religion interface.  Talks which I had already missed included one by AC Grayling dealing with arguments against religion and whether arguments for belief stand up to scrutiny and posits humanism as a view of the world and a foundation for morality.  I am reading Jonathan Sack's 'The Great Partnership: God Science and the Search for Meaning.  On the surface, I find Sack's argument that faith has always played a part in human culture and that it inspires people to acts of moral greatness, though undoubtedly true, as curiously unsatisfactory as a basis for belief  and somehow placing religion on a par with science. I find myself with a problem when articles of faith for some religions - such as the resurrection of Jesus - clash obviously with the facts of science. This is a particular problem when I read that faith pivots on the literal acceptance of the resurrection as fact.

Still, I must read on.

Wednesday it must be Wallingford.

I was struck by a great sense of joyful familiarity as we were driven from Reading to Wallingford yesterday by our good friend Kathy Mansfield - who took time off from the Oxford Literary Festival.

It seems colder than March of previous stays but much else remains the same.  More houses but still plenty of green space and farms.  Didcot still chuffing out smoke. Faint smell of wood fires in the street.   Waitrose dominates high street and its old store effectively vacant.

The Lime Tree on St John's Green is flourishing although there are worries about the depth of its roots. I played a role as head of CABI in advising that a Lime be selected to replace the old dying oak tree planted more than a 100 years ago so I take a bit of responsibility for its welfare. The old metal seat on the Green has been restored to its place of pride around the tree and a new plaque added to record its planting in December 2005.

Kites, reintroduced to Oxfordshire some twenty years ago, are now prolific but limited to the County.

Later, we walked around town and I spent some time in the Old Post Office (OPO) enjoying a coffee. Kathy Mansfield dropped in to spend some time by the fire and talking about highlights of the Festival with me searching for talks on the science/religion interface.  Talks which I had already missed included one by AC Grayling dealing with arguments against religion and whether arguments for belief stand up to scrutiny and posits humanism as a view of the world and a foundation for morality.  I am reading Jonathan Sack's 'The Great Partnership: God Science and the Search for Meaning.  On the surface, I find Sack's argument that faith has always played a part in human culture and that it inspires people to acts of moral greatness, though undoubtedly true, as curiously unsatisfactory as a basis for belief  and somehow placing religion on a par with science. I find myself with a problem when articles of faith for some religions - such as the resurrection of Jesus - clash obviously with the facts of science. This is a particular problem when I read that faith pivots on the literal acceptance of the resurrection as fact.

Still, I must read on.

Denis with the Mayor of Bath at the launch of the Bath Digital Festival on 14th of March 2013.

On Saturday 16 March I wrote: we are on the train from Bath to Portsmouth where we will change to a train to Brighton. We chose this route as an alternative to the one prompted by British Rail because it gave an opportunity to view the Wiltshire country-side rather than the somewhat drearier view on the Bath to London to Brighton route and because of the relatively easier transit afforded by the flat platform at Portsmouth.

For  a few miles out of Bath the train follows the River Avon, passing for example, Bradford on Avon.

Much had also changed at the Roman Baths in Bath since our first visit in 1972.  Instead of gloomy, blackened uninviting ruins we saw sparkling waters beautifully lit as Bath celebrated a renewal and preparations for a festival.

After a meeting with the Mayor of Bath, an elected for twelve-months-only official,  we moved on to a drinks party at the spa hosted by the festival.

There is an interesting vitality about Bath illustrated for me by the changes being rung on the multiple, and beautiful campuses of Bath Spa University by its new Vice Chancellor Professor Christie Slade.  Not all of these changes have yet been made public but they are based on an optimistic, even aggressive, approach to public private partnerships building on the great heritage of Bath and the scope for it to become an international centre for global leadership through innovation.  It certainly has the history and the environment and leadership of individuals such as the Mayor and Christie to establish itself as such.

We were impressed with Bath from the moment we alighted from the train at Bath Spa Station. We were met by a very helpful employee at the Station; she gently guided us with our heavy luggage to a newly installed lift; introduced us a taxi driver at the front of a queue who knew our destination and the fact that roadworks might block our entrance to it - he kindly helped us with our baggage down the hill; and of course by the generous welcome from our hosts Rob Hamilton and Christie.

Introduction

This blog has been created so that Denis and Sharon can share with a wider audience of friends their experience during their 2013 travels to the UK, Turkey and Greece and other places yet to be decided.

The picture is one that Denis took on travels late in 2012 as he flew from Tanzania to Kenya capturing a glimpse of the monk-like crown of Mount Kilimanjaro, now much smaller than when he first saw it in 1976.