AYSEL BOZAN YILMAZ – Yıldız Technical University (YTU) is one of the most established educational institutions in Turkey. After 111 years behind schedule, the university is experiencing a very different buzz these days: Yıldız Technical University Schools are preparing to open their doors. Thus, all the peoples of the educational chain from kindergarten to doctorate in YTU will be completed.
YTU Rector Prof. Dr. We met Tamer Yılmaz and got information about the school they will open. “We started, we are ambitious. A great school is coming with good staff. Yılmaz spoke about this and answered our questions:
– Can you tell us about the history of the establishment of your school?
Many good universities have schools. We’re a little behind, but we’ve seen the benefits. We are a Post Covid school. We have accumulated savings and we come with a good school. The school was founded by YTU Foundation and YTU Yıldız Technopark. Our model is a bit different, technology driven. We will transfer all the knowledge from our university to our school with our Technopark, where we have 550 companies and 11,000 employees. This year we will start with kindergarten and primary school. We will open our middle school next year and our high school next year. Education is a chain. If one of the links in this chain is weak, it will break from there, regardless of the strength of the other links. You can be a very good university, but if you don’t have a good high school, there is a weakness there. The child comes to you as badly brought up. We have completed this chain.
It will start in the historic building
– What are your student admission criteria?
Question the children academically; We will offer a program that leads to learning through practice, experience and experimentation. We are looking for children who can be helpful and who we believe can benefit from the content, who show their age characteristics and development.
– How many students will you welcome in the first year?
We will welcome 150 students. We are restoring the historical building of the bakery on the Davutpaşa campus. That’s enough for primary school. We are in the project phase for middle school and high school. We will complete the construction in 6 months.
– What training model will you put in place?
We start with the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (IBPYP). We also put forward a holistic education philosophy and called it the Star Elements of Education. The YTU logo star has three legs at the bottom. This is the academic basis. Knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are included here. These are the characteristics that students studying at YTU should have. Then comes Ethics and Aesthetics, the components that go forward, allowing the child to write his own story. Then, between the two, the star has four arms: responsibility, connectedness, self-knowledge and well-being. These are the so-called transformative skills that precede the skills of the 21st century. In the middle of the star we took the state of well-being, that is to say the future well-being. At the top is lifelong learning.
– How is your teacher profile?
There are also YTU graduates among our teachers; METU, Boğaziçi is also a graduate. We have received many applications from experienced teachers with master’s and doctoral degrees. We will produce good students, but at the same time we aim to create a community of teachers who are happy to teach. We will have a profile of teachers who love their job, are experienced, intellectual and continue to learn.
– Are the tuition fees fixed?
We did a calculation on how much we are going to invest, how much we are going to pay the teachers, what would happen if it was at par. We got a slightly lower number than that. Our list price of 150,000 TL + VAT. We will grant 60% reduction to our academicians. In addition, until May 31, we will apply a 20% discount on early registration and a 20% discount on first registration each year.
bilingual education
In YTU schools, which will place importance on teaching foreign languages at all levels, students will receive bilingual education in Turkish and English in kindergarten. From primary school, a second foreign language will be added to the school curriculum.
Intertwined nature
Aiming at the versatile development of children, the school has thought of everything from art workshops to science and technology laboratories. In addition, there are natural exploration areas such as water and windmill, natural tunnel and archeology area, which are interesting for students.