Psychology association seeks to curb ‘student inflation'

Beyazıt ŞENBÜK - ISTANBUL

A psychologist’s association has initiated legal proceedings with the aim of curbing the vast number of unqualified psychology graduates in the country, demanding a minimum required score for the department to be designated for the university entrance examination.

According to the guidelines of Türkiye's higher education exam authority, every university exam participant is currently eligible to study psychology without needing to meet a designated minimum score. In contrast, disciplines such as medicine, law, pharmacy and dentistry mandate a minimum score for admission.

Challenging this policy through legal means, officials from the Turkish Psychologists Association (TPD) underscored the detrimental impact on the reputation of psychology departments and the adverse effects on the proficiency levels of psychology graduates.

“There was a total of 10 psychology departments founded in the country between the years 1900 and 1999, with a total quota of about 200 students. Currently, the field has over 10,000 quotas,” said chairman of the association, Professor Dr. Gökhan Malkoç, pointing to the numbers growing uncontrollably over the years.

Drawing attention to the precedent set by other fields that train professionals for public service and require a minimum score, he stated, “The psychology department should also be accepted as a public interest department and a minimum required score should be designated. Universities that do not satisfy the standards should not be granted quotas.”

Indicating that this unplanned growth may result in “psychology inflation” in the future, Malkoç noted that the minimum rank for the psychology department should be designated as 200,000.

Echoing Malkoç’s concerns, educational specialist Salim Ünsal emphasized the importance of establishing a minimum score requirement for psychology programs, highlighting the crucial role of psychology graduates in addressing public mental health.