Educating labour force for a green economy and renewable energy jobs in Turkey: A quantitave approach

Today, the struggle of man against nature has reached the point where nature has been objectified and dominated by resource exploitation as we are faced with huge problems like decreasing natural resources; destruction of climate-ozone layer-glaciers; altering the rhythm of seasons; global warming; decreasing agricultural areas and more negative conditions brought on by the burgeoning human population. These problems threaten the life of all living creatures in the natural world itself. One critical factor is that humanity must harness the ability to create truly renewable energy sources instead of depleting the natural resources directly in order to generate the energy to sustain the lifestyles of today. One aspect of this struggle is to educate the leadership and labour force to actively realize green economies and jobs in the renewable energy sector. In the Turkish educational system, there is a true disconnect between the educational system and the labour markets that is causing a rise in unemployment rates among graduates. Educating green collar workers is an important opportunity for Turkey to develop consistency within the labour markets that have rapidly weakened since 2000.This paper presents an overview of educational policies regarding the development of a green collar industry by facilitating renewable energy jobs through vocational-technical high schools and graduate and post graduate university programmes. It also analyses state policies on popularising business and industry to actually create green collar jobs for the development of a new social paradigm of sustainable development. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.