Scholarship Opportunity for Students Choosing Textile Engineering

Turkish Fashion Industry Offers Scholarships and Employment Guarantees to High-Achieving Young People Choosing Textile Engineering for Higher-Value Exports The fashion industry, which has enabled 233 students to receive scholarships through the "My Choice is Textile Engineering" project, aims to recruit successful young people to the sector in 2022 as they make their career choices. Reminding that the textile and ready-made garment sectors are among those providing the highest foreign currency inflows to Turkey's economy, Jak Eskinazi, Coordinator President of Aegean Exporters Associations and President of Aegean Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association, emphasized that the combined exports of the two sectors amount to 30 billion dollars. "We are Turkey's second-largest exporting sector. We generate a trade surplus of over 20 billion dollars. We are the European Union's second-largest textile and raw materials supplier and third-largest ready-made garment supplier. We are one of only a few countries in the world capable of executing all production stages of the textile and ready-made garment sectors, from fiber production to ready-made garment manufacturing. Our sector, by virtue of its weight in production and employment, is one of the dynamic sectors with continuously growing and positively differentiating characteristics, offering diverse work fields where our young people can choose their direction according to their abilities and preferences. Beyond knitting, weaving, dyeing, yarn, and garment manufacturing areas, R&D, manufacturing, sales, marketing, and textile machinery all fall within the field of textile engineering. We invite our young people to choose Textile Engineering." EHKİB Investment in the Future Burak Sertbaş, President of Aegean Ready-Made Garment and Apparel Exporters Association, mentioned that they are implementing the "Development of Textile Engineering Perception" project with Aegean Textile and Raw Materials Exporters Association to meet companies' demand for qualified textile engineers. "We started our project in 2018 under the name 'Engineers of Fashion.' With the philosophy 'There is a Future in Textiles,' we invited our young people to choose Textile Engineering and made the project a project of the entire Turkish Fashion Industry. We are in the third year of our scholarship project. Textile Engineering ranks among the professions with the shortest time to employment in Turkey. In terms of employment, including the retail sector, we have over 2 million employees. In female employment, we reach 50 percent. The export unit price of the textile and ready-made garment sectors is 7.3 dollars. We are achieving exports that are 7 times more value-added than Turkey's average."  

233 Students Qualified for Scholarships

Sertbaş stated, "For our young people to benefit from the opportunities within the project scope, their university entrance exam success ranking must be within the top 80,000, textile engineering must be one of their first five preferences, and they must have been placed in that preference. Students ranking in the top 20,000 receive scholarships equivalent to the minimum wage, those between 20,000-50,000 receive 70 percent of the minimum wage, and those between 50,000-80,000 receive 50 percent of the minimum wage. In the project's first year in 2019, 92 students received scholarships, in the second year 74, and in the third year 67 students received scholarships. Over three years, a total of 233 students qualified for scholarships." he said.  

Enrollment Rate Increased to 83 Percent

Emphasizing that the "My Choice is Textile Engineering" Project provides at least one semester of applied internship opportunity, Burak Sertbaş continued: "Sixteen percent of students studying textile engineering begin their working lives before graduation, gaining applied experience. In this way, our students will have jobs ready when they graduate and will begin gaining experience very early. Before the project, the enrollment rates in textile engineering programs were around 42 percent, and now that rate is 83 percent. To fill the intermediate personnel gap, we also have work with the Ministry of National Education targeting vocational high schools."