Department Mission

The Department aims to provide a unique educational opportunity to individuals who wish not only to develop their personal educational potential but also wish to help others to achieve theirs. This involves offering our students a wide range of required and elective courses in several disciplines along with close faculty and staff support and facilities.

The Department of Educational Sciences offers the following programs:

• Computer and Instructional Technology Teacher Education
• Middle School Mathematics Teacher Education
• Pre-School Teacher Education
• Psychological Counseling and Guidance (PCG)
• Master's Program in Educational Sciences (M.Ed.)
• Secondary School Subject Teaching Non-thesis Master's Program
• Doctoral Program in Educational Sciences

The General philosophy of the department is to graduate students who are capable of thinking, creating, producing, criticizing, articulating, adapting and developing. Our well established undergraduate program in Psychological Counseling and Guidance (PCG) is geared towards preparing counselors to serve the communities in North Cyprus, Turkey and world-wide, in several different ways which is very important for the psychological well-being of the people living and/or working together. Recent socio-psychological, political and economic developments mark the importance of well- educated counselors within a society.

One of the new programs, the Pre-school Teacher Education Program, is designed to fulfill the need for teachers to be appointed especially as class teachers to serve in pre-schools and elementary educational institutions in Turkey (1st Stage).

The Middle School Mathematics Teacher Education program aims at training teachers to be appointed as mathematics teachers in elementary schools.

Our general aim is to graduate highly qualified professionals who would quickly adapt to their prospective positions and contexts, who would willingly contribute to their institutions' improvement as well as working towards their self development and thus put their potential to effective use.

The Department has three graduate programs: MEd without thesis (Secondary School Subject Teaching) and MEd with thesis and PhD in Educational Sciences. The first program aims to provide well-designed core of educational preparation courses to the graduates of other disciplines with the aim of certifying their teaching capabilities. Those candidates have the advantage of having an early career in teaching with a full degree preparation in their respective areas through a well-designed non-thesis Masters program offered in Turkish. The latter two programs lead to an MEd and a PhD in Educational Sciences. Both programs are carried out in English and take an interdisciplinary approach to education whereby students may take various elective courses besides the core curriculum. In these latter programs, our aim is to prepare scholars who would carry out qualitative and quantitative research in education and related fields. This complies with our general aim and objective of producing quality teachers and educational scientists who would contribute to the improvement of curriculum, instruction and education in general.

Department Facilities

Our departmental library includes some unique reference publications that can be borrowed on a long or short-term basis. Our PCG students also have access to a Guidance and Counseling Room where they can not only practice some of the counseling techniques individually and in groups but also utilize various audio-video production facilities to enhance their personal and professional growth.

The Department of Educational Sciences provides various opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to apply their theoretical knowledge in a great range of institutions, including private and state schools, special education centers through on-site field and practical experiences at different levels.

Besides, our students studying in various programs to become teaching professionals have technically and technologically equipped classrooms to practice what they theoretically learn in their school experience and internship courses.

Distinguishing Attributes

What makes our students studying in various undergraduate programs special is that they have a multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary education. Besides professional knowledge and skills as teachers, they develop their analytical thinking skills and gain a global approach to matters of education and daily events taking place around them and around the world.

At the end of a four year degree program, our PCG graduates are not only exposed to a thorough education in their field but are also highly literate in the English language, for the medium of instruction is English. Our graduates, therefore, are in a position to conduct research in their field in English as part of their graduate studies, and gain a significant attribute enabling them to widen their horizons to the world.

Through close cooperation with the TRNC Ministry of Education and Culture and preschool institutions, primary schools and secondary schools under the Ministry as well as Eastern Mediterranean University Pre-University Education Institutions, our department offers its students the opportunity to apply the theoretical knowledge they gain in actual practical context. As a result, our students are trained in such a way so as to have no difficulty in their professional lives.

Students completing our graduate programs possess qualities necessary for teachers, educators, educational scientists, researchers and academicians of a contemporary world.  

Quality of Graduates

Students completing our undergraduate and graduate programs as well as our teaching certificate programs perform distinctively on career examinations and succeed in their personal enterprises. This is a result of their self-confidence and self-esteem developed in a free, creative, pragmatic and acquisitional environment created by the department.

Our Secondary School Subject Teaching M.Ed. program graduates have been successful in serving as teachers in North Cyprus and Turkey.

Our PCG graduates have also the advantage of establishing their private counseling centers whereby serving the community by creating new job opportunities, and also enjoy the privilege of being certified to work in schools and major business organizations.

Although the department has seen its first PCG graduates in 2004, it already boasts about the achievements of some of its graduates having succeeded in getting into graduate programs of internationally recognized universities and some being offered jobs at various counseling and guidance centers.

Job Opportunities

The importance and the need for Educational Sciences today create various job opportunities for students completing our undergraduate and graduate programs as well as our teaching certificate programs.

Graduates of our undergraduate Middle School Mathematics Teacher Education, Pre-school Teacher Education, Computer and Instructional Technology Teacher Education programs, and graduates of our Secondary School Subject Teaching M.Ed. programs have the opportunity to serve as teachers at various levels of schooling and education in Turkey and in North Cyprus.

Students graduating from the Psychological Counseling and Guidance program (PCG) will be able to serve as school counselors in schools. Thus, they will act as mediators in administration, teaching, student counseling, family interaction, coordination and cooperation for a healthier and better functioning school environment in which everyone would be happy and satisfied. Graduates of PCG program will also be able to initiate private counseling offices where they will be giving services related to family counseling, career counseling, coping with stress, establishing and maintaining positive relationships, and the like. These people will have the opportunity to give services in small, medium and large scale enterprises for the betterment of human relations, establishment of positive work environments, and hence improvement of productivity. Our graduates who specialize in group counseling will be able to serve teams in workplaces, teams in military, teacher teams in schools, sports teams and any team of people who are gathered around the same goal.