Master Thesis Defense: Aylar Hayytjanova

THE RETURNS TO VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION IN TURKEY BY

DISCIPLINES

Aylar Hayytjanova
Public Policies, MA Thesis, 2015

Thesis Jury

Alpay Filiztekin (Thesis Supervisor), İzak Atiyas, Haluk Levent

Date &Time: August,3rd   2015 – 11:30

Place: FASS 2054

Abstract

Recently Turkey is actively engaging in reforming the vocational education, so that it

could serve as a valid alternative to general education. However, only limited number of

studies in Turkey scrutinize labor market conditions faced by the general and vocational high

school graduates. The review of labor force surveys shows while vocational high school

graduates certainly face higher returns in terms of labor force participation and average wages

compared to high school graduates, these returns do vary across the vocations. The graduates

of engineering, science/mathematics/computing majors have the best perspectives for being

employed and participate in the labor force, while education and services graduates face

adverse labor market conditions. Using standard ordinary least squares method, I estimate that

the vocational high school graduates on average earn 1.8 % over general high school

graduates. The wage returns within vocations, however, are considerably unequal. The

science/math/computing major receives the largest 18% markup over education discipline,

followed by services, engineering, health and social sciences/business/law graduates enjoying

returns in the range of 10.5%-12.5%.  The lowest premium is received by arts/humanities -

4.6% and education majors. These findings could assist policymakers in evaluating current

and future educational policies. Moreover, they might be helpful in ensuring that the

disciplines with the lowest returns are reoriented towards market needs and in designing

incentives to motivate individuals to pursue these majors.