Tarihsel süreç içerisinde eğitim bütün yönleriyle tartışılmış, hedeflenen insan modelinin yetiştirilmesinde sürekli yeni programlar denenmiş ve bu kapsamda her dönemde inşa ve ıslah çalışmalarıyla eğitim politikaları üretilmiştir. İlköğretimden yükseköğretime kadar bütün alanlarda yoğun çalışmaların Selçuklu ve Osmanlı devleti dönemlerinde yapıldığı bilinmektedir. Eğitim ıslahatları yönündeki en önemli çabalardan birinin, aynı zamanda Emrullah Efendi ile Satı Bey arasında gerçekleşen bir tartışmayı da yansıtan "Tuba Ağacı Nazariyesi" olduğu tarihi kayıtlarda geçmektedir. Satı Bey bir ağacın normal gelişimi gibi eğitim ıslahatlarının ilköğretimden itibaren başlaması gerektiğini savunurken, Emrullah Efendi cennette olduğu varsayılan, kökleri yukarıda dalları yerde olan bir ağaçtan esinlenerek eğitimdeki ıslahatların yükseköğretimden başlaması gerektiğini vurgulamıştır. Çalışma, Tuba Ağacı Nazariyesi'ni çıkış noktası olarak alarak, günümüz eğitim sistemi içerinde uyarlayarak ve yeni paradigmaları analiz ederek yükseköğretim için yeni bir model ortaya koymayı amaçlamıştır. Bu çalışmada, günümüzde yükseköğretime neden öncelik verilmesi gerektiği, bu önceliğin model temelli tarihi dayanağı, yeni paradigmalar ışığında, yeni yükseköğretim yaklaşımları ve modelleri açıklanmıştır. Çalışma, literatür taraması şeklinde yürütülmüştür. Buna göre; tarihsel tecrübeden yararlanarak günümüz üniversitelerinin öncelik konuları, yeni yükseköğretim yaklaşım ve modelleri temel alınarak ve belirlenerek bu eğitim arayışlarına katkıda bulunulmuştur

It is noteworthy that educating and being educated are two issues that are always associated with some sort of problems when phases of higher education, from past to present, are considered. The main problem usually is, not knowing where to begin implementing the innovations and reforms in the educational policies and practices to deal with the problems associated with educating and being educated. It is not always easy to assess whether it would be better to start implementing the innovations and reforms in the educational policies and practices from the primary school level or from the higher education level; thus, in this sense, the problem can also be described as a priority issue. This priority issue has led to the creation of various debates and different perspectives in the Turkish education history as well. One such renowned debate is the one between Emrullah Efendi (hereinafter referred to as Lord Emrullah) and Sati’ Bey (hereinafter referred to as Sir Sati’). Lord Emrullah's approach to the educational reform was that to begin the innovations and reforms in the educational policies and practices at the higher education level, whereas Sir Sati’'s approach was to begin the innovations and reforms in the educational policies and practices at the primary education level. In this regard, Lord Emrullah's approach is considered to be a top-to-down approach and is also known with the name of Theory of Tuba Tree, a tree, believed to be in heaven in Islamic literature, which have its roots hanging up in the air; and Sir Sati’'s approach is a bottom-up approach and is also known with the name of Theory of Cherry Tree, which have its roots in the soil like a regular tree. Especially the reforms realized at the Darülfünün, which is late Ottoman period higher education institution, indicate that Lord Emrullah's approach was acknowledged and implemented in the late Ottoman period in comparison with Sir Sati’'s approach. When Turkish educational system is considered in general, there always seems to be a concurrency or a simultaneity problem, which is a problem of aligning separate educational levels, namely, PreKindergarten and Kindergarten, primary education between 1st and 4th grades, middle school education between 4th and 8th grades, high school education between 9th and 12th grades, higher education, and postgraduate education, in terms of educational objectives, curriculum, inputs, outputs, etc. For instance, when the scope of the educational reforms are limited just to higher education, then it would be difficult to expect students that come from an outdated K-12 system to accord themselves with the new reforms. Yükseköğretimin Yapılandırılmasında Emrullah Efendi’nin “Tuba Ağacı Nazariyesi”… 1009 Turkish Studies International Periodical For the Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 10/2 Winter 2015 Going back to the late Ottoman period including the first few years of the Turkish Republic, we see that questions such as 'Why did we fall behind so much?', 'What can we do to better our situation?' were commonly raised. Two educational reform activities are noteworthy during this era. First one is the implementation of a series of an organized planning-programming activities that took place as a result of intense debates on educational reforms in İstanbul during the time when Ottoman had to retreat from Balkan Peninsula suffering from massive casualities. The second activity that is noteworthy to mention is the First Delegation of Scientific Studies helf between 15 July and 15 August 1923 in Ankara during a time, when the newwly established Turkish Republic was facing many other problems domestically and abroad. This study is based on descriptive research and the goal is to introduce a new model for higher education referring to The Tuba Tree Theory after about 100 years once more, adapting it into today’s educational system after a thorough analysis of newly existing paradigms. Amongst issues that are discussed are that why higher education should be given priority today, and the model-based historical background of this priority as well as other new approaches and models in the light of new paradigms. Emrullah Efendi’s Theory of Tuba Tree The prime mover of the Tuba Tree Theory, Lord Emrullah, lived between the years of 1858 and 1914. He was both a scholar and a politician, one of the 'civilizors', a group of people that was defending the necessities of the time in a reasonable fashion. This group was aiming to preserve the unity of Ottoman Empire via Westernization and also via remaining loyal to the Ottoman&Islamic tradition, both to be achieved through education (Ülken, 1998; Kazıcı, 1995). Lord Emrullah served as the Minister of Education between 1909 and 1914, one of the reasons why he had more opportunities to implement his Tuba Tree Theory compared to Sir Sati’'s Cherry Tree Theory. According to his theory, Lord Emrullah first aimed to create an elite squad of educators at the higher education level, then to transform the lower educational levels in the hands of this class of elites (Binbaşıoğlu, 1995). He claimed that reforms starting from the elementary education level would not lead to any results in the short-term considering the situation of Ottoman Empire and it is required to start from the higher education level. In this approach, education of a group, whom are selected according to certain criteria, will be given the priority and then this class of elite educators will educate the public. This way, it is expected that the educational reforms will first take root at the higher education level, then will spread down to the secondary education and primary education levels. Lord Emrullah claimed that education to be executed within the Ottoman lands had to have three main objectives. First is to preserve the science via spreading out the knowledge by means of an educated group; second is to provide general education to the public; and third is to ensure the unity and solidarity of Ottoman Empire through education by realization of the first two objectives (Emrullah, 1326: 1010 Tuba YAVAŞ TAŞDELEN - Cemil ORUÇ - Volkan ÇİÇEK Turkish Studies International Periodical For the Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 10/2 Winter 2015 631). This was a first in Turkish educational history, when a westernstyle education model targeting an elite class, was experienced. Strongest objection to Lord Emrullah’s theory came from Sir Sati’. Sir Sati’ claimed that a reform in education would only possible by educating the masses instead of educating a certain segment of the society. Thus, educational reforms must be started from the primary education level, from bottom-up, as it is in the case of a cherry tree (Sati’, 1333: 359). Sir Sati’ added that it would not possible to provide a good secondary or higher education following a weak and dysfunctional primary education (Sati’, 1911). Sir Sati’’s ideas were acknowledged by many later on and because of that Lord Emrullah was blamed for the deteriorating primary education. Lord Emrullah responded to the accusations of deteriorating primary education with the following quote, “Science starts from the top level, but when I say that I don not imply that primary education is unimportant. Rather, I will pay utmost attention to the primary level, which is why I start the educational reforms from the top, because the order is reverse as in the case of tuba tree; its roots are up in the air. We see that when we look at the history of science and how civilizations were devopled” (quoted from Emrullah, 1326: p.631 in Ergün, 1996: 61). Among the studies of Lord Emrullah were Language Teaching, Preparation-Remedial Classes, Centralization of the Education, and Vocational Diploma, which were intended for all levels of education; namely, primary, secondary, and higher education levels. In today’s world, there are several approaches to have aligned educational levels, e.g., K-16, P-16, and P-20. K-16 approach includes an aligned education beginning from Kindergarten level plus 16 years until completion of undergraduate education, while P-16 approach includes the Pre-Kindergarten level in addition to the K-16 approach, and P-20 approach includes the post-graduate education level in addition to the P-16 approach. Number of years of education to be aligned steadily increase as the age to go to school decreases and the age to complete education increases in most parts of the world. For instance, U.S. requires going to Kindergarten at age 5, while keeping Pre-Kindergarten education optional for now; whereas Turkey requires going to primary school on or before age 6, while keeping pre-school education optional for now. Both countries require going to school until being graduated from high school or until 18 years of age given there are special circumstances. The idea of having coordinated or aligned educational levels gained more support by the 2000s (Consortium for Policy Research in Education, 2000). Conclusion Studies reveal that success at the university level depends on the performance showed during the preceding educational levels down to Kindergarten education (Institute for Educational Leadership, 1999). Certainly, concurrent alignment and coordination of all educational levels is not an easy task and requires oversight over all educational levels, additional human and financial resources, management capacity, and the appropriate legislation to be in place. Therefore, it may be reasonable for an educational system that does not have any of Yükseköğretimin Yapılandırılmasında Emrullah Efendi’nin “Tuba Ağacı Nazariyesi”… 1011 Turkish Studies International Periodical For the Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 10/2 Winter 2015 the aforementioned resources to align and coordinate the educational levels, as it was the case in the late Ottoman period, to implement Lord Emrullah’s top-to-down Tuba Tree approach. Today, both Lord Emrullah’s Tuba Tree approach and Sir Sati’’s Cherry Tree approach remain important and relevant considering the effect of globalization on the educational systems that has led to unions between educational institutions. For instance, higher education institutions in the European Higher Education are aligned within the scope of Bologna Process and many universities and K-12 institutions implement American educational system around the world. Thus, standardization process of the educational institutions will continue in the world that is becoming a global village and the theories of Lord Emrullah and Sir Sati’ will continue to remain relevant, especially for the countries that do not have the capacity and resources to achieve concurrent transformation of their educational systems.