Ideal Turkish youth: Devout and empty

American author Henry Miller once wrote, “The American ideal is youth – handsome, empty youth.” The Turkish ideal, too, is youth: just replace “handsome” with “devout.”

In 2012, Turkish students aged 15-years-old ranked 44th in the world’s most comprehensive education report by the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which assesses the extent to which students have acquired key knowledge and skills in mathematics, reading, science and problem solving. In higher education, traditionally, only three of Turkey’s 175 or so universities can make their way into the world’s top 500 universities list.

According to a 2013 report, released by the British Council’s Education Intelligence research service, 95 percent of Turkish students said they wanted to study overseas. Another survey, released this week by the Vodafone Group, found that 60 percent of Turkish youths aged 18 to 24 wish to pursue their careers abroad.

A 2012 survey by the pro-government think tank SETA found the aspirations for a devout and empty Turkish youth were successfully moving ahead.

The survey, interviewing 10,174 youths aged 15 to 29, discovered the following: Most did not speak a foreign language; only one in 10 had been abroad; their favorite cultural activity was watching television and their favorite programs were soap operas; one-third of respondents did not read newspapers; only 12 percent regularly read a magazine; they mostly listened to Turkish pop music (52.4 percent) and foreign pop music (22 percent); slightly more than one-third smoked, 21.7 percent drank alcohol and 21.4 percent gambled; 40 percent did not exercise or play sports. Finally, the person that a large majority of Turkish youths "most admired...