Scholarships to raise number of foreign students

Turkey is increasing its international scholarships in an effort to become a global education hub, according to officials. There are more than 54,000 international students from around the world enrolled in Turkish universities with over 13,000 of them funded by government education programmes, reports the Daily Sabah.

"Turkey aims to have more than 200,000 international students by 2023," said Serdar Gündogan, head of the Turkish Prime Ministry's International Students Department. Turkey has allocated about US$96 million for government scholarship programmes for 2014, a new record, Gündogan said.

Afghanistan has the largest number of students in Turkey, followed by Azerbaijan and Kosovo. Africa's share has increased in the last three years due to changing Turkish policy towards the continent, which involves outreach and financial aid, Gündogan said. Nearly 90,000 applications from 176 countries have been filed for the coming academic year, the highest number so far. There were 56,000 international applications in 2013 and 44,000 in 2012.
Full report on the Daily Sabah site