Ankara University

[EduCativ]

As the oldest university of the Turkish Republic, the history and mission of Ankara University have greatly coincided with that of the young State founded by Atatürk. The Turkish Republic's establishment was much more than just a change in government; it was also a tremendous social transformation based on modern science, contemporary democratic values, and institutions. Similarly, the institution of Ankara University can be considered one of Atatürk's most important statements on the character and objectives of higher education, which should be entrusted to the State rather than other institutions. The foundation of Ankara University was a personal initiative of Atatürk, meant to form the basis of his principles and revolutionary ideas to disseminate, firmly establish, and defend these principles and ideas that express modernity, science, and enlightenment nationwide.
The initial and impressive accomplishments of the new Republic in the area of higher education were to open a new School of Law to educate jurists for a new restructuring of the law in 1925 to establish the Higher Institute of Agriculture to serve the farmers of Turkey in 1933 to open the Faculty of Humanities to gather data on numerous Anatolian cultures and their richness, and to establish international linguistic and cultural ties in 1935 to open the doors of the School of Political Sciences, which had been training high-ranking public administrators under the name of Mekteb-i Mülkiye since 1859 and moved to Ankara in 1936 by Atatürk's particular order.
To the institutions mentioned above, the Faculties of Medicine and Science, also initiated by Atatürk, but whose opening was postponed to the late 1940s because of the Second World War, should also be added. The subsequent history of Ankara University, officially established in 1946 with the Faculties of Law, Humanities, Science and Medicine, each of which had essential missions in the building of the Republic of Turkey, is as follows:

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