A Comparison Study of Higher Education Graduates of Germany and Turkey

Abstract

This research focused on higher education graduates in Germany and Turkey on all fields of education, especially engineering programs in terms of all education levels and gender. The study has provided situational awareness in general on all fields of education, levels of education and gender, but on the “Engineering, manufacturing and construction” field in detail. In the research, many important findings are identified. Turkey’s ED7 (Master’s or equivalent level) and ED8 (Doctoral or equivalent level) graduate numbers and ratios are significantly lower than Germany when compared to the ED6 level. The research also revealed us that the graduation ratios of ED6 (Bachelor’s or equivalent level) and ED7 among female engineers in Germany are close to each other, indicating that female engineers in Germany are more likely to hold a master's degree after undergraduate education. Among these findings, the most important finding is; while the gender ratio of higher education graduates in Germany at all education levels is almost equal between male and female students, this ratio has started to increase in favor of female graduates in Turkey. This situation developed differently among graduates of engineering programs. While engineering graduates in Germany had a fixed ratio of approximately 80.5% male and 19.5% female graduates between 2014 and 2019. In Turkey, this ratio is improving in favor of female graduates from 32.8% in 2014 to 34.9% in 2019. In this research, it is concluded that the higher education intelligence needs to be top priority for higher education officials.