The Council of Higher Education’s decision, published yesterday in the Official Gazette, to make admission to doctoral programs in designated priority fields subject to a centralized written examination may at first glance appear to be a technical regulation. But the issue is not technical. It is directly about how the university is understood as an institution.

A doctorate is not merely a matter of measuring knowledge. It is a matter of evaluating research capacity, intellectual orientation, methodological maturity, and the ability to fit into a particular academic environment. To align this with the logic of a centralized exam is to turn doctoral admission from a process of academic formation into a bureaucratic screening mechanism.

In strong university systems around the world, the primary authority in selecting doctoral students rests with the department, the program, and often directly with the supervisor. That is because doctoral education is not mass placement. It is entry into a research community. A candidate is evaluated not only by scores, but by the research proposal, methodological competence, intellectual curiosity, and the kind of relationship they can establish with a particular scholar. The master chooses the apprentice.

Today, the argument in favor of this policy is framed in terms of merit, standards, and objectivity. In Türkiye, nepotism, tailor-made job postings, and closed-circle distribution of academic positions are common complaints. But the solution is not to transfer academic selection authority to the center. The flawed judgment of a department is merely replaced by the judgment of a centralized system that cannot see academic context. A centralized exam cannot determine which candidate is suited to which research group, laboratory, theoretical tradition, or supervisory relationship.

Moreover, this is not limited to a few narrow technical fields. Among the 56 areas that YÖK has defined as “priority fields” are not only artificial intelligence and biotechnology, but also migration studies, history of science, information law, Armenian Language and Culture, and Syriac Language and Culture. What is being centralized, then, is not simply the selection of technical human capital. The state is not only deciding which forms of knowledge are to be considered priorities. It is also increasingly concentrating in its own hands the authority to determine who may enter those fields.

Yet this is precisely where the essence of the university lies. A department must be able to select students suited to its own research agenda, and a supervisor must be able to decide, on academic grounds, with whom to work. Once you weaken this authority, you turn the university from a knowledge institution into an implementing arm of centralized manpower planning.

Is centralization increasing because universities have problems, or are universities becoming weaker because centralization is increasing? Türkiye’s experience in higher education suggests that the second possibility should not be dismissed. The way to build academic quality is not to strip universities of decision-making authority, but to make that authority transparent, accountable, and open to scrutiny.

The state may support strategic fields. It may provide scholarships, open positions, and build infrastructure. But support is not the same as control, and encouragement is not the same as taking over the power to select. If a university cannot choose its own apprentice, what remains is an institution with a campus but without its own will.