Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

Competence of Faculties of Theology to Educate The Competent Religious Functionaries: A Study Based on the Opinions of the Students of the Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University There have been recently many works made or published on setting the vocational com- petences in order to improve the work quality. The Presidency of Religious Affairs has taken its share from these developments, especially after 2004, and has achieved very im- portant efforts to determine the staff competences which are expected from the future re- ligious functionaries to fulfil their responsibilities efficiently. This paper elaborates on the opinions of the students of Faculties of Theology, which is one of the main institutions educating the future religious functionaries of the Presidency, on to which extent the education given at the faculty is competent to the determined competency fields. The research which constitutes the main core of this paper has been conducted on the students of Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University. In order to gather and reflect more detailed information about the student’s opinions the data was analysed only by using the frequency distribution of the answers. Hopefully, this paper will provide data for the future works on improving the quality of education at the facul- ties of theology as well as contributing the Presidency of Religious Affair to shape its fu- ture employment policies