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.