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President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that he wants the university named after him to become a distinguished university both in Turkey and the world.
"We expect our university to rise to the top 10 in our country and then be in the top 500 in the world," he said during a visit to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University in the Black Sea province of Rize.
"I trust my esteemed professors. This is what suits a university named Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," he remarked.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University was founded in 2006 when Erdoğan was the prime minister.
"... With the investments we made in infrastructure and human resources, the Turkish higher education system has reached an advanced level," Erdoğan further said.
"We have increased the number of our universities from 77 to 207 ... When I told Merkel we have eight million 400 thousand university students, she was surprised, she said, 'Phew!'.
"In terms of the number of students, we rank first in Europe. We have raised the share we allocate from the budget to 2.5 billion lira to 36 billion lira as of this year." (DŞ/VK)
