ISTANBUL — The chairman of the Council of Higher Education has presented a new report in which he stresses the need for at least 45,000 more academics to provide better education at universities. Çetinsaya presented his report entitled "Growth, Quality and Internationalization: A Road Map for Turkish Higher Education" at Atatürk University in the eastern Turkish province of Erzurum yesterday. The report focuses on the past three decades of higher education, its current state and issues numerous recommendations.According to the report, there are 141,674 university lecturers in Turkey as of April 2014. "In light of national and international data, the Turkish higher education system is in dire need of academics. In order to reach Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standards, that is, 16 students per lecturer, Turkey needs about 45,000 academics including 20,000 lecturers with a doctorate degree. This means that every year, about 18,500 lecturers should be employed throughout the next five years," the report said.The report also highlighted the need for restructuring the higher education system and "for reaching Turkey's 2023 development goals in line with global dynamics, the development of academic manpower, internationalization and a switch to quality growth instead of a growth in quantity," the report stated.Turkey has about 5.5 million university students, with 62 percent of them undergraduates and 32 percent studying for associate degrees. According to the report, the number of students in distance education significantly rose in the past 30 years, from 26,626 in 1982 to 2,545,000 in 2014. The number of students increased after a 2011 regulation that lifted limits on terms a student can attend. Çetinsaya said in his report that most students attending the distance education programs did not renew their enrolment or suspend it and thus, about a million students have not been actively pursuing programs.He added in his report that the distance education programs needs an overhaul for this reason. Distance education programs are provided exclusively by Anadolu University in Turkey. The program offers a wide range of classes from literature to business administration but for most students, it provides a chance to delay compulsory military service without having to attend university since students can delay military service as long as they do not complete their university degree.The report noted that the number of academics rose to 141,674 in 2014 from 22,000 in 1982, with 19,877 of academics currently engaged in teaching. The report mentioned that only 45 percent of academics are lecturers with a doctorate degree while others are lecturers without a degree. "Turkey needs about 45,000 academics to catch up with international standards in terms of the number of academics and this need is of critical importance with regard to growth projections for the next decade," the report reads.