[Introduction to North Cyprus]
North Cyprus Universities
[Complaints and Feedback page]
*NEW - Complaints and Feedback page *
We would urge any EU passport holder to send a copy of any article of a serious nature that you send to isas-ch about METU.NCC -or any other university in North Cyprus- to your Member of the European Parliament (MEP) or your National Member of Parliament (MP); e.g., in the case of a UK citizen your Member of Parliaments address would be House of Commons, LONDON W1A OAA. If you are still in North Cyprus you might think it prudent to send a note to your Country’s representative there telling them about the problems you are facing. If you are a holder of a UK Passport please use the following e-mail address: Claire.Lawley@fco.gov.uk
EU passport holders from other member states can contact us for further information; if we don’t have the information to hand we will do our best to find it for you.
We are in contact with many politicians and European Agencies of all political views. You will be constantly reminded of how the Turkish Cypriots ‘inalienable rights’ and ‘noble and just causes’ are being ignored. Whilst in most cases we support the Turkish Cypriots ‘just causes’, it works both ways folks. The EC has supported a number of worthy projects in Northern Cyprus paid for by the tax Euros of the community’s citizens. It’s a bit galling to hear of students and teachers at the universities there on the receiving end of treatment that would be deemed to be unacceptable almost anywhere else in the world! Here we are in the 21st century only to find that it is illegal for any foreigner (non-Turkish Cypriot) to publicly protest about anything over there. You can loose your life savings after being ripped off by a dodgy builder and/or estate agent, despite the fact that you have employed a local lawyer to act in your interests, you might well find the same lawyer acting for the dodgy builder/estate agent. We are talking tens if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, and such scenarios are becoming the rule rather than the exception! You can imagine what things are like for the poor hapless teacher who comes along and has the temerity to complain about anything - anything at all. Your contract, if in fact you get one, is not really worth the paper it is written on. Forget such things as ‘contracted hours of work,’ because chances are the institution will work you for as long and whenever they see fit, including evenings, weekends and public holidays. Thinking of a court challenge? Forget it. You will wait way beyond the length of your contract before the case gets to court. Blacklists, well you will get put on one even for forgetting to be respectful to the rector's chickens but more about blacklists later. So don’t just sit there and get angry, get even!
Write to your MP, MEP, Senator, Congressman or whoever, and demand if the EU is funding projects in the TRNC, then (as EU citizens), demand fair and equal treatment that the Turkish Cypriots rightly are entitled to and demand from the EU and the rest of the world! Because Turkish Cypriots, and for that matter Turks in general, have suffered unjustly for so many years, this is not an excuse to treat others unjustly just because they are not Turks or Turkish Cypriot! Citing that this is the LAW in North Cyprus is not an excuse- show the world the TRNC puts human rights foremost – AND CHANGE THE LAWS TO ENSURE EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL- REGARDLESS OF NATIONALITY!
What's more don’t forget to tell us.
Recent letters received
Letter 1 -
METU-NCC, School of Foreign Languages,
Kalkanli, North Cyprus.
We have had a number of complaints about the management of the school of foreign languages at METU/NCC. The complaints come from both students and teachers. We received the following letter from an applicant for a teaching post at METU/NCC, but decided not to publish the letter at that time as the writer was still expecting an explanation from the rector at METU/NCC. To date, no reply has been forthcoming.
We received several letters of complaint on the same subject from different people. We understand that a further complaint is now with our legal advisors. It is clear that something is seriously wrong at METU/NCC School of Foreign Languages.
This website has been running since 2005 and never have we received so many complaints about one single university department. Most of the complaints come from foreigners -especially native speakers of English- and it is interesting to note that all those complaints have come from individuals of equal academic rank to the current management of METU/NCC SFL. When we say foreigners we include Cypriots in that description as the current head of the SFL clearly defines Cypriots as foreigners!
What becomes apparent from the following letter of complaint, is that whilst the present management of the SFL may indeed hold a relevant MA in a related English Language subject -although this is a supposition as no subject details are given about their B.A / MA degrees on the METU/NCC website-, we therefore assume they must know the theory of teaching it; but their production and understanding of the language appears to be a bit shaky from complaints we have received. Furthermore, there is no real evidence that they have ever had any classroom contact with students, at least not at METU/NCC that is. Their human resource management skills appear to be scant to non-existent and their manners leave much to be desired. The contract given to academic staff appears to be flexible to the point of being worthless, with some members of staff expected to work well beyond their contracted hours. The SFL management seems to take the term working week to be every day for an unspecified number of hours, rather than the hours clearly stated on the contract.
What becomes abundantly clear is that the current management of the SFL at METU/NCC has little interest in running the department in what is seen as an acceptable manner, and in a manner beneficial to the good name of METU and its students. But appears more interested in preserving their position by making sure that no applicant is appointed who might become a direct challenge to their position at some future date.
The following letter was sent to us after the writer failed to get a reply from the Rector of METU/NCC Prof Dr Turgüt Tumer and Prof.Dr Hüsnü Enginarlar of METU Ankara. He did receive an acknowledgement from a Mrs Nurcan Kandiller of METU Ankara who had in fact forwarded her copy to her head of department, the same Prof. Dr Hüsnü Enginarlar.
To reiterate what has been said on this website by Homerfile, professional academics who are interested in working in Northern Cyprus would do well to look elsewhere until the problems at METU/NCC SFL are sorted out. Behaviour such as this is not expected from a university with METU’s reputation, or from a university that takes an active part in the Erasmus and Socrates exchange programmes.
The following is letter of complaint number 1, which has been partially made anonymous to protect the complainant.
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NOTE: IN AN ATTEMPT TO BE FAIR TO ALL PARTIES CONCERNED, ISAS-CH HAS DELAYED THE PUBLICATION OF THIS LETTER WHILST GIVING METU.NCC EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO TRY AND RESOLVE THE ISSUES CONTAINED THEREIN. DESPITE CONSIDERABLE EFFORT ON THE PART OF ISAS-CH AND THE RECTOR OF METU.NCC, WE WERE UNABLE TO REACH A COMPROMISE. THE RECTOR OF METU.NCC HAS RESPONDED IN WRITING TO THIS LETTER, BUT ISAS-CH AWAITS HIS RE-SUBMISSION OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE IN AN ANONYIMISED FORMAT ACCEPTABLE TO HIM. WE ARE ALSO HAPPY TO PUBLISH ISAS-CH'S RESPONSES TO HIS CORRESPONDENCE SHOULD HE DECIDE TO RE-SUBMIT HIS ANONYIMISED LETTER.
(NAME and ADDRESS REMOVED But known to ISAS-CH).
1st September 2006
Prof. Dr. Turgüt Tumer
Rector
METU NCC Campus
Dear Prof. Dr. Tumer,
Re: METU- NCC, School of Foreign Languages.
I received a telephone call from the secretary of the SFL yesterday afternoon, (31st August 2006), to inform me my application for a post in the above department had been unsuccessful.
As I explained in my previous email to you, I was concerned with several aspects about how the ‘demo lesson and interview’ were conducted, and following a formal decision I would elaborate on these concerns in detail. This I will now do.
On Friday the 25 August 2006, I met with XXX hanım and had an informal discussion with XXX about the post and the procedure for appointment of staff. I discussed in detail my CV, and explained in detail my previous work history and reasons for leaving any prior employment. Such discussions are in my professional opinion, confidential between the department head, rector and personnel department.
XXX seemed quite hostile, and kept repeating ‘I had rejected METU.’ Actually, my first application to METU-NCC was for the faculty department (before the campus was finished), and the student support service. I had numerous contacts with Prof. Ahmet Acar concerning possible job opportunities, and have shown nothing but professional interest in METU-NCC.
In fact I have never had a formal job offer from METU to ‘reject’, but having accepted another job offer, and out of professionalism; I advised XXX I would not be attending the interview scheduled for April 2006. This is normal professional practice, but one XXX seems not to understand and which XXX seems to have taken as a personal rejection.
XXX reluctantly (in my opinion) arranged that I would give a demo lesson to herself and two teacher trainers from Ankara on Monday 28th August 2006 at 4pm, followed by a formal interview.
I arrived some 30 minutes before the scheduled time for the demo lesson and presented myself to XXX hanım. I was informed there would now be five people assessing me; 3 teacher trainers, XXX and new member of the teaching staff. The secretary kindly made additional copies of the material and showed me to the classroom at 15.45.
The ‘panel’ arrived some 15 minutes late at 16.15 for the class; not a professional start. Had it been a real class they would have been severely reprimanded for being late. It was unprofessional and rude- if there was a problem, XXX hanım could have asked someone to inform me, out of common courtesy, that they would be late.
Such ‘demo’ lessons are a contrived and false situation, and it is very difficult to enact learning behaviour one would get from real students. For example, one would presume that the ‘assessors’ English language level is superior to the level set in the assessed task (in this case it was Intermediate level English). Another difficulty in such situations is deciding whether the behaviour and questions asked by the panel are from a ‘student, teachers or head of department’ perspective.
The following comments are issues that arose from the lesson:
Demonstration Lesson
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One of the teacher trainers (who does not even hold a first degree) was behaving rather childishly; "oh look at the pictures" and was told off by XXX hanım. She was told to concentrate on the task given. Unfortunately, this rather set the tone for the rest of the demo lesson. |
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XXX hanım disagreed with one of the answers (surroundings) to the questions; she seemed to think that the word ‘environment’ was similar to ‘natural surfaces.’ I explained in some detail about environments (classroom, social/ university environments, etc.), and that you cannot be in a ‘natural surface’, e.g., stones, tree, ceramics, etc. it’s rather worrying that your head of the English prep-school seems not to understand these differences in English vocabulary. |
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XXX hanım then proceeded to ask me if I spoke Turkish. I replied some. XXX asked me to translate these words into Turkish. I explained this was an English lesson and it was not appropriate to do so. Also, as a non-native speaker of Turkish I may get it wrong. |
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XXX hanım explained XXX did not understand these words: stripes, spots and uneven patches. I drew an example of a zebra with stripes on the whiteboard. XXX seemed unsatisfied with this, and then suggested that students have spots during adolescence and that I could have used one as an example! I strongly explained as a psychologist, it would be highly inappropriate and unprofessional for any teacher to single out a student with spots/acne to be used as an example for a class. Quite worrying that management of a department should make such a suggestion. |
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By this time it was clear they way things were going. It seemed that panel had not been adequately briefed on the task they were to perform and how to do it. |
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Some of the juvenile behaviour I am sure is not that expected or accepted by students at METU, or appropriate for the alleged English level of the task set- intermediate English. If such students at this level in METU do not know what stripes, spots and uneven patches are then you have a problem. The reading lesson used in the demo lesson, would in most TRNC universities, be at English proficiency level. |
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Also, is it appropriate for the panel to consist of a potential colleague, who has just been appointed to METU-NCC? I have arranged and participated in many interview panels and would avoid this to prevent potential problems. In my professional opinion, it is simply not appropriate to do this. |
Post-lesson Interview
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XXX hanım then read my lesson plan and CV again. During the whole period of the ‘interview’ I was made to stand in front of the panel. It would have been more appropriate to have been offered a seat. |
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I was then horrified to see XXX hanım pass my CV around the panel! This is an incredible breach of confidentiality. This was followed by XXX discussing in front of the panel, aspects of our ‘informal’ interview from the previous Friday; in particular, reasons why I had left my previous employers. |
There may be many failings in the running and administration of the universities in North Cyprus, but for all these failings, I have never experienced anything like this before. I have always been led to believe that METU is a professional and well regarded university in Turkey and around the world. Frankly, following my experiences outlined above, unfortunately it is not the impression I have been left with.
I ask you to treat this in the strictest confidence, and I have also been asked to send a copy of this to the parent university in Ankara for their attention.
I have also emailed asking for; the decision in writing, for the return of my confidential documents -copies of diplomas and my CV- by registered post to the address above, and that any confidential documents held in an electronic format be securely removed.
Yours sincerely
Name is held by ISAS-CH
NOTE BY ISAS-CH. THE ABOVE ARTICLE AND LETTER IS EDITED AND WHERE REQUESTED AN ANONYMIZED VERSION OF THE MATERIALS ORIGINALLY SUBMITTED. THIS WAS DONE AT THE REQUEST OF THE RECTOR OF METU.NCC Prof Dr. Turgüt Tumer.
Letter No 2
8th June 2007.
Dear Mr Homerfile,
I want to thank you personally for your help. I was a Cameroonian student who studies in North Cyprus and I want to tell you all the things you can say on your website is truthful about that hell on earth.
Your Mr Urs was much help to me and another Cameroonian student and wish we had seen all your details and information before going to that bad place. We would have staved before any man there would have helped us.
The only thing I learn when I was there was a few words of Turkish that we needed to understand the lecture which must be in English but was not. Even teachers course notes were in Turkish.
North Cyprus is not a good place for our student and I will always tell our Cameroonian youth is a bad and dangerous place for the students not coming from Turkey and it is expensive but education is so bad. I never want to hear North Cyprus and not the EMU ever again.
Mr Urs letter in Cameroon newspaper is very true and good for our youths who will tell of isas-ch to everyone.
Thank you to everyone at isas-ch.org and thank you for everyone in Switzerland.
F.M.M.
Pleased that we were able to help and sorry that you had such a bad experience. Do keep in touch.
Homerfile. isas-ch