The Effects of Public Investments and Accessibility to National Markets on the Demand for Distance Education

Abstract

Public investments are directed to the social and economic areas. The state must carry public investments and services to every corner of the country, such as transportation, sewage, energy, education and health care by considering social stability and meeting human needs. Otherwise, unrest and disobedience may start to be experienced in the under developed regions and migration begins towards the developed areas in which the infrastructure services are completed. The regional insufficiency in public investments creates political, social and economic imbalances and instability. Differences in physical, social and geographical conditions between the regions of a country are generally based on the problems such as, the uneven distribution of the population, the differences in agricultural production and dissemination of industrial activities only in certain regions. The regions which are close to the national market are generally known to be more developed due to the use of market advantage. Transportation infrastructure and access to the national market affect the economic performance of the regions. In all provinces of Turkey, Anadolu University Open Education System has an important place by providing open and distance learning services. In this study, the relationship between the demands of open education system is investigated both with public investments and national market accessibility index respectively. For this purpose, different regression models were established and these models were evaluated statistically. In conclusion, the presence of linear positive correlation was determined.