Turkish Naval Academy - Tuzla Campus

Tuzla Campus

The transfer of the academy to a more convenient location arose as a necessity, due to increasing demands of the Turkish Navy over personnel and place as well as transportation problems of the island of Heybeliada. A new campus was projected over 3,000-acre (12 km2) land at Tuzburnu peninsula on the northern shore of Marmara Sea in Tuzla district of Istanbul. On July 28, 1977, Fahri Korutürk, President of Turkey and an alumnus of the Naval School, laid the foundation.

The Naval Academy facilities in Tuzla were opened by the Turkish President Kenan Evren on July 31, 1985. The academy left Heybeliada to the Naval High School.

First officers from the new campus graduated in 1989. At the beginning of 1990, the status of military academies in regard of the Bachelor of Science concept at universities was discussed. With the beginning of the academic term 1991-1992, the education programs at military academies were upgraded in a manner equivalent to the engineering programs at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul Technical University and Middle East Technical University. The graduates receive a BSc degree upon graduation from the Naval Academy without requiring further studies in post-graduate programs of the technical universities in Turkey. The first officers with a BSc degree in addition to a Naval Academy diploma left the institution in 1997.

Control and electronic engineering branch, a sub-division of electric/electronics division, was separated as control systems and computer engineering in 1993, starting from the second class. To become harmonized with STCW-95 agreements (international midshipman educational program), a new educational program starting from the first class was applied in 1995. Moreover, the number of vocational and foreign language courses was increased, graduation project was extended from one-semeter to four-semester course, meteorology and intelligence courses were added.

For the training of officers for the marines and engineering corps branches, graduates of civilian high schools were admitted in 1995 to the first class. However, this type of sourcing process was abondened the next year. The first officers of marines and engineering corps were commissioned in 1998.

In 2000, the academy's organization was restructured by reconstructing the branches granting engineering degrees and increasing the number of major science branches from four to nine. The same year, the "Naval Sciences and Engineering Institute" was founded for postgraduate studies in order to meet the needs of the Turkish Armed Forces, starting from 2001-2002 academic term.