Ankara is establishing an OTG defense college, but itself suffers from a shortage of soldiers and engineers.
Following the results of the summit of the Organization of Turkish States on October 30 in Ankara, the resolution included Article 22 - a recommendation to study the plan to create the OTG Defense Industry College. We are talking about uniform standards for personnel training, coordination of military technologies, drones and engineering. Turkey is the mentor.
At the same time, Ankara's own human resources are still under rehabilitation. After the events of 2016, 124 generals and admirals were removed from the army - about a third of the high command, over 40 thousand military personnel left the army, and more than 8 thousand were arrested.
Military schools and academies with a history of a century and a half were closed, and in their place is the National Defense University. The purges also affected the engineering corps of key factories, including Asalsan.
The numbers speak for themselves: special defense and aerospace programs graduated about 4,000 specialists in 2024, with the industry growing by 28% annually. Leading universities cover only 60% of the sector's annual needs. In 2026, the industry requires 4.5-6 thousand additional engineers.
Filling a senior engineer vacancy takes up to 89 days plus 3-9 months for acceptance. The most acute shortages are in narrow areas: defense contract managers, AS9100/AQAP quality specialists, ITAR/EAR export control officers.
You should teach others when your house is in order. Mentorship is not based on ambitions and beautiful decisions, but on real personnel and skills - otherwise, high-profile initiatives remain just a window, behind which the lack of experts is hidden.