From Being Departure to Destination Point: International Student Mobility in Turkey

If internationalization of higher education is defined as particular policies and initiatives of countries and academic institutions structured to handle global trends, then policies stimulating international student mobility and students themselves are indispensable components of this process. In the European context, it is the Bologna Process which promotes internal mobility of students, teachers, and administrative staff, and establish a framework of magnifying
competition to magnetize international students and have a general purpose of transforming Europe into a prominent knowledge-based society. This article first briefly explains the Bologna Process and its main goals. Subsequently, it will give a brief overview of Turkish higher education system and demonstrates developments and implementations of the Bologna Process. Next, it will concentrate on the situation of international students in Turkey. Consequently,
it has several recommendations on how to attract more international students and thus move a step closer to be a knowledge-based society in a globalizing environment.