Abstract:

In March of 2011, with the civil war in Syria, millions of Syrians have been forced to emigrate to Turkey. Syrian youth, participating in the forced migration process, continue their education in Turkey. Today, the number of Syrian students studying in universities in Turkey has exceeded 20 thousand. The aim of this study is to determine the views of the Syrian students studying at Osmaniye Korkut Ata University (OKU) in 2017-2018 academic year about their education, social and cultural relations, economic conditions and future plans and to evaluate their experiences in the migration process. For this purpose, a likert-type questionnaire scale was developed. In addition, an interview form was developed in order to examine students' migration process in depth. The population of the study consists of Syrian students studying at OKU. 105 out of 196 Syrian students enrolled in OKU were included in the study. The questionnaire was applied to 90 students because of voluntariness. In addition to the questionnaire, in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 students in order to compare the findings. Quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire were processed through SPSS program and data analysis was performed by taking into account the interview forms. As a result of the research, Syrian students; It was determined that they had difficulty in learning Turkish, their psychologies were deeply affected by the war, some were in financial distress, some were working part-time outside of school hours, most of them wanted to return to their country after the war. Social-cultural activities should be increased between the local student groups and the Syrian student groups in order to solve the problems related to language in the education process. Syrian students of the educational process should be improved, social cohesion projects should be developed to accelerate to adapt to the Turkey society, these projects should be supported by local governments and NPOs and universities.

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