April 8 - 9, 2011: Ankara Turkey
April 8, 2011 is the first official day of the recruiting trip. I am traveling with a group of other boarding schools from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., we have all joined Linden Boarding Schools Tour. Today we visited Bilkent International School, one of the top schools in Ankara. It is also associated with a university and founded by a wealthy doctor who valued education and first built a university, then a high school, and finishing with an Elementary School. We were able to meet with several middle school students who were looking for a summer program.
Immediately following Bilkent we drove to Ankara TED. There are 24 TED Schools throughout Turkey, and once again are considered to be some of the top schools in the country. The TED Ankara School is the largest private school in the world, with over 6,000 students. The campus was enormous. The students were on break, but we were able to meet with some administrators who gave us a tour of the school and talked about the Turkish educational system, and how students are looking for 1-year exchanges and summer programs.
The third school was Ozel Buyuk Kolej, and we were able to present our summer school and post-graduate program to over 30 English teachers. Turkish students must pass a rigorous national university entrance exam, and students feel the pressure to pass those exams. For decades, students couldn’t afford to only go to school. Instead, students would regularly attend “dersane” or tutoring courses to help them prepare for the national exam above and beyond their regular class work. Buyuk Kolej originally started as a Dersane but decades ago became a full-fledged Kolej.
The following day, April 9, 2011 we held a fair for interested families. I was able to meet with families interested in both the school and the summer program.
-Josh Clark
