Professor Recep Şentürk, the President of Ibn Haldun University said, English is a key for the West, Arabic is a key for the East, but Turkish is the key for the future and they are building the future at Ibn Haldun University. In an interview at Start daily to journalist Zeynek Türkoğlu Professor Şentürk said, engineering and the field of medicine is the first two things that comes to people's minds talking about science. "It is crystal clear that societies need expertise in every field. They need great engineers, great doctors. But at the same time societies need social scientists as well. That is why we are focusing social sciences at Ibn Haldun University." he added. Stressing that most of the problems that humanity faces today are social troubles, Professor Şentürk said only the social scientists can find answers to these problems. Professor Şentürk said, "If a country has an engineering project, an international team of engineers can succesfully put it into practice. But you can not import an expert if you are trying to solve the problems of Turkish family structure. Only the ones who grew up in those lands, who breathed the air in sky can diagnose the problems and produce the right solutions."
Professor Şentürk said, they are always emphizing that Ibn Haldun University is a "real research" university, that is because they aim to educate social scientists who can produce the right solutions the world faces today. "We aim to educate researchers, academics, possible professors and the philosophers of the future in social sciences." he added. According to Professor Şentürk, the reason Ibn Haldun University imposes mandatory trilingual programs for graduate and undergraduate students is because at least three foreign languages is needed to become a real researcher. He said, "Our students at graduate, undergraduate and PhD levels must learn Turkish, Arabic and English at intermediate level. Otherwise they can not get their degrees." Professor Şentürk continued: "It is of course to much for an ordinary profession expert to speak three languages. But as Ibn Haldun University we are looking for young people who will compete in the world and be the voice of our country. One of the objectives of Ibn Haldun University is to have at least half of our student from foreign countries. This interaction will bring experience to Turkish students. Besides that, after graduation, those international students will be Turkey's honorary ambassadors in the future. These are the reason our student must learn at least three languages. Because, English is a key for the West, Arabic is a key for the East, but Turkish is the key for the future. And we are building the future." Professor Şentürk underlined that they have adopted comperative education method so therefore West and East is being taught to the students. "We will teach them Freud and Ghazali, Marx, Adam Smith and Ibn Haldun. The former system always told us the first two. No one mentioned about Ibn Haldun or Ghazali. The former system was one-sided.
That is to say, if a student wants to learn both Islam and the West, he should choose Ibn Haldun." he added. To read the interview of Professor Şentürk at Star daily, please click here.
