Bilkent has become one of the first two universities in Turkey, and the first among the country’s foundation universities, to receive full accreditation under the Institutional Accreditation Program newly implemented by YÖKAK (the Turkish Higher Education Quality Council). The accreditation will remain valid for five years.
The president of YÖKAK, Prof. Muzaffer Elmas, presented the accreditation certificate to Bilkent’s rector, Prof. Abdullah Atalar, at a ceremony held on July 27.
In his remarks during the ceremony, Prof. Elmas stated that YÖKAK’s purpose is to help ensure that university graduates will have proper qualifications and thus be able to find jobs easily and contribute to society, for instance through work in research and development. The Institutional Accreditation Program, which implements a quality assurance system for evaluating universities, covers areas including education and training, research and development, contributions to society and administrative procedures. The ultimate goal is to increase universities’ contributions at the national level in Turkey, as well as to raise their profile internationally.