MEHMET AKSEL
A recent article I read with great interest was Talat Çiftçi’s piece from last week on T24 about the socioeconomic cost of graduate unemployment. It was a dense but equally beautiful article; the image they used was also quite bold.
I agree with everything Çiftçi wrote; his statements were all spot-on, and I’m sure the numbers included were also accurate, but now I would like you to approach this issue from another perspective, which I will try to explain below.
It was 2008.
A certain gentleman was looking to establish a university.
A very VIP delegation—whose meeting appointment was made days ago—was present in my office. They were the board of directors of the newly established university; each member was acting as if they were ‘God’s gift to humankind’. Everyone in the meeting was either a special director or a special officer; every single thing in the meeting was special.
I will spare you the details of the introductory part where they talked about how ‘theirs would be the best university’, and offer you a few anecdotes from the meeting.
“Mehmet Bey, there will be a culinary arts department in our university, and as you know, there is a lot of demand. Since you are the best in this regard in Turkey, we decided to work with you.” (I had no idea about this, but apparently they had already decided on my behalf!)
As the one-sided conversation progressed, I realized that there was no planned investment in people or equipment, and that all they had were empty promises and deliberations on student quotas and fees.
It was as if they were talking about a flock of sheep as opposed to students.
What was even better was that this gentleman had used his incredible intuition to surmise that there was such a need.
In short, he said:
- You know those candidates, who weren’t able to pass the preliminary requirements at MSA,
- Those who wanted to come but didn’t have the financial means,
- Those who aspired to attend after seeing MSA on television,
- And those who want to avoid compulsory military service,
They all added up to create ‘a potential that couldn’t be underestimated’.
He even made a wonderful segmentation in his mind; supposedly, we, at MSA were meeting the needs of the ‘crème de la crème’ (from his point of view), so, at the new university, he would meet the needs of the ‘other segment’.
He didn’t have any idea about the MSA students (and their families), whom he called the crème de la crème, the material and moral sacrifices they made to come here, and the dreams they were chasing with their hearts beating in the kitchen.
According to the gentleman, I was supposed to look at the numbers and not worry about the details. In fact, if I could prepare three to five training sessions, that would be enough for them, the content wasn’t that important for them as long as it was cheaper.
At the very end of this meeting, which seemed to run for ages, he also kindly gave me a marketing lesson. With the knowledge that a well-known elder in my family who established schools in Ankara and Izmir, he said, “Why are you trying to promote MSA, Mehmet Bey, just write your relative’s name on the building, and see if there is any better advertisement than that”.
See…
I don’t think that this is the way to go about establishing schools in our country.
What good would come out of a mindset that establishes universities, vocational schools or even nurseries based on numbers found on excel sheets?
Would anyone dare to say?
My students…
– Will receive the most essential, effective and up-to-date educational content,
– Will meet and work with the best and latest equipment,
– Will graduate with a diploma that holds global validity and rating,
– And of course, will only graduate if they deserve it.
Would anyone think about his or her students every single day, and ask?
– What more can we add to their training?
– Who else can we put in front of them as role models?
– How can we be more/differently useful to them in school or later in life?
– Where do these people sleep, how do they get to school, how do they live, what do they eat, what do they drink?
A proper school would address these, a proper manager would enjoy dealing with issues like these, and a proper investor would consider it a win when he or she sees that success, that smile, and that satisfaction in their graduates.
Only then would that school become a School.
And since I am on a roll, here are two ‘bonus’ anecdotes for you…
Funny enough, I’ve heard of a school that sells culinary education without a kitchen. (A solid source)
The lady who answered the phones was embarrassed of her job and asked her boss:
– They keep calling, but we do not have a kitchen, there are no teachers, what are we really selling?
The boss responded:
– You first make a few sales, and then we’ll build a kitchen and find a teacher.
And another story about the state of the industry…
It was 2007, three years after the foundation of MSA, when we started to reap the first fruits of our efforts.
My office door was opened, and there entered the president of one of the dozens of ridiculous culinary federations in Turkey. Following the useless ceremony of hellos, I was made aware of the reason for his visit:
“Mehmet Bey, our association has 900-odd members, and now as you also know, this Institute of Vocational Qualifications has appeared and they are asking us for qualification documents in order for us to be able to work. The cost of your Cooking and Pastry training is approximately 10 thousand TL. We will give you 1,000 TL per member (he is offering me a bribe of about 1 million TL), and you will give us the international qualification documents.”
I asked, “How about the training?”
He responded, “What training?”