AGORA Europe II

Gazi University (www.gazi.edu.tr) is one of the few universities whose history dates back to 1920s. Right after the declaration of the Turkish Republic, Ataturk and his friends decided to establish an institute. This resulted in the establishment of the ‘Teacher Training Institute’ in 1926. In 1929 the institute was given the name ‘Gazi Teacher Training Institute’ and continued to educate students under this name for many years. In the Academic year 1949-1950 the institution was given the name ‘Gazi Institute of Education’.

In 1982, with the act number 2809 the institution gets the name Gazi University together with Ankara Academy of Economy and Commerce, Ankara College of Technical Teachers, Ankara Girls’ College of Technical Teachers and Ankara Government Academy of Engineering and Architecture. Actually this university is the continuation of the tradition starting with Republic with a new name. Apart from Gazi Faculty of Education, the academies mentioned above play an important role in the establishment of the university. Ankara Academy of Economics and Commerce was already like a university when it was joined to Gazi University. In those days, the Departments of Medicine Dentistry, Pharmacology and Communication were all a part of this academy. Ankara Academy of State Engineering and Architecture is also included in Gazi University.

Gazi University is very decisive and ambitious in fulfilling the requirements of the Bologna Process to which Turkey became a party in 2001. The university started bilateral cooperation on student and academic staff mobility immediately after receiving Erasmus University Charter in 2004. The university also exhibits a great interest on EU Life Long Learning Programme had the first place among Turkish universities as regards to projects supported by LdV Programme. In 2005, European Universities Association (EUA) membership of Gazi University became active.

When it was first built it had 9 faculties, 12 colleges and 4 institutes but the number of these units increase. Today, Gazi University carries out its educational and research activities with its 25 faculties, 21 colleges, 18 research centers and 5 institutes and it still claims it is a higher education institution which is worthy to Ataturk. GAZI will be one of the backbones of this project as it used to be in many others completed formerly.

Role:

GAZI will lead WP-2 Design of the “AGORA” e-Learning Environment together with CLARUS [EL]. It will actively take part in the valorisation of the project activities and results too. The other tasks of GAZI are; as for the specific tasks within this project, GAZI will to provide the national contact database, provide the country report and evaluation, provide the coordination for external and internal evaluation of the project results, and prepare the in-service training guide for target groups with the common perspective of the modular program and national exceptions. Furthermore, GAZI will bear; build a collaborative platform between Turkey and other partners. GAZI will help improvement of the university-industry- SME’s relationship in Turkey. On the other hand, the project will benefit from the strong background and scientific variety potential of the university.