'Hundreds of thousands of students will be deprived of education'

Students in İstanbul protest against high rent prices and dorm fees. (Photo: Barınamayanlar/Twitter)

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Muazzez Orhan-Işık has submitted a parliamentary question about university students' housing problems with the start of the academic year.

"Because of reasons such as the high fees and the insufficient capacity of the Loans and Dormitories Institution (KYK) dormitories, some students to get into university cannot enroll or attend school.

"It is impossible for a civil servant who has two university students or a minimum wage earner who has one university student to afford their education with current housing expenses.

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"High rents also restrict students' opportunities to rent a shared house."

While there are about eight million university students in Turkey, the capacity of the KYK dormitories is less than 800,000, Orhan-Işık noted.

"The low capacity of dormitories negatively affects the access of students in poor households to education. One of the important factors in the dropout of nearly half a million students every year is the lack of housing.

"It should be known that hundreds of thousands of students will be deprived of their right to education if dormitory and housing facilities are not improved."

She asked the following questions to Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer:

• What are the numbers of higher education students and students who applied for the KYK dormitories?

• What percentage of applicants have been placed in dormitories? How is the gender distribution of them? What are the criteria for being placed in dormitories?

• What is the number and capacity of dormitories for higher education students in Turkey? What is the number of public and private dormitories? What is the average fee difference between public and private dormitories? How are dormitory fees controlled?

• What control mechanisms are in place to prevent discrimination and favoritism?

• How many students dropped out of university between 2015 and 2021?

• What efforts will be carried out to provide alternative housing opportunities for students who are not placed in dormitories?

• How many students cannot continue their education because of the lack of housing facilities?

• What efforts are carried out for increasing the number of independent student dormitories, which do not belong to [Islamic] orders and communities? (DŞ/VK)