Classes empty despite face-to-face education

ISTANBUL

While two weeks have passed since the start of hybrid education in universities that offered both face-to-face and online lectures, classes have remained empty as most students preferred to attend classes remotely.

After the devastating earthquakes that jolted the 11 southern provinces in early February, the Higher Education Board (YÖK) announced that universities would switch to distance education.

As of April 3, nearly two months later, face-to-face education has resumed, but many students still attend classes online.

In some universities, not even one student attends the classes, according to some academics.

Hence, the classes are still empty in spite of two weeks of hybrid education.

Academics give online lectures in empty classrooms they come to teach in case there may be some students.

Academic Behçet Yalın Özkara from Eskişehir Osmangazi University in the central Anatolian province stated that the attendance to the classes was very low, saying, “I have 50 students, only two of them came. In the lesson for evening education, there was no one.”

Stating that this low level of participation in classes is due to financial reasons, Özkara pointed out that students do not want to return from their parents’ houses to their university cities for the remaining two months to incur additional expenses such as accommodation, transportation and food.

“We expect an increase in the participation after the Ramadan feast, but still at most half of them [students] will come,” Gökhan Demirhan, another academic from Uşak University.

“I conducted a survey in all the classes I gave lectures. According to the results, the rate of those stating they will participate does not exceed 25 percent in any class,” Demirhan explained.

As there is no attendance requirement, students do not attend courses even if they live in the provinces where they study, Demirhan added.