The "10.000 Schools in Basic Education Project", which was implemented by the Ministry of National Education in order to reduce success and opportunity differences between schools and to strengthen equality of opportunity in education, was completed. The closing ceremony of the project, for which a total budget of 4 billion liras was allocated, was held in Diyarbakır with the participation of Minister Mahmut Özer.
The "16 Schools in Basic Education Project", which was initiated and completed on September 2021, 10.000 by the Ministry of National Education in order to provide equal opportunities in education by reducing the differences between schools, to support the professional development of teachers, to strengthen the school climate and to increase the quality of education by meeting the maintenance, repair and equipment needs of educational institutions, is closing. The ceremony was held in Diyarbakır with a wide participation.
The closing ceremony was attended by Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer, Deputy Ministers, Ministry bureaucrats, UNICEF representatives, national education directors of 81 provinces, school administrators, teachers and students.
The program started with a mini concert given by the 'Private Sounds Grove', consisting of private students in Diyarbakır.
In his speech at the ceremony, Minister Mahmut Özer stated that the concert given by the 'Special Voices Choir' took everyone in the hall on an emotional journey and said, “I would like to express my gratitude to our special puppies, youth and children with a big heart. Hopefully, we will surprise them and invite them to Istanbul. We will celebrate that day together with them on 3 December International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Istanbul.” said. Özer commemorated the recently martyred Ayşenur Alkan and all martyred teachers with mercy.
Reminding that the most permanent capital of a country is human capital, Özer said that the most important instrument in increasing the quality of human capital is education. Özer continued as follows: “When we came to the 2000s, the picture in Turkey was not encouraging at all because the schooling rate for five-year-olds was only 11 percent in those years. The enrollment rate in secondary education was only 44 percent. Net enrollment in higher education was only 14 percent. In other words, enrollment rates at all levels except primary school were below 50 percent. When we look at the OECD countries, that is, the countries with which we compete, we see that those countries increased their schooling rates at all levels of education above 1950 percent in the 1960s and 90s. As a result of the mobilization carried out under the leadership of our President in the last 20 years, regardless of region, city or district, the schooling rates in five-year-olds have increased from 11 percent to 98 percent in the last 44 years, and the schooling rates in secondary education, that is, in high schools, from 95 percent. The enrollment rate in primary school reached over 99 percent, and the enrollment rate in secondary school reached over 99 percent. For the first time in the history of the republic, the schooling rate has exceeded 95 percent in all levels of education in the last two decades. In other words, the last twenty years correspond to a period in which human capital is utilized in the most efficient way.”
Özer underlined that in addition to the increase in schooling rates, anti-democratic practices such as the coefficient in university entrance and the headscarf ban were abolished and the elective courses were significantly diversified, and that there has been a revolution in education in the last twenty years. stressed.
Concrete steps were taken for children with no economic means
Reminding that the conditional aid has been going on for nineteen years so that the children of families with no financial means can continue their education, Özer said, “Transported education is offered, one and a half million students currently eat free of charge in the education system. Many social policies were implemented in this period to strengthen the equality of opportunity in education such as hostels and scholarships.” he said.
“The architect of all developments is our President, who always allocates the biggest share of the budget to education and always makes positive discrimination to education.” Özer said, “We would like to express our gratitude to them from Diyarbakır. We, as the Ministry of National Education, focused on three points in order to carry our education to much better points and to increase its quality.” You made your statement.
Explaining that they attach importance to strengthening equality of opportunity in education first, Özer said, “We had two main focus points for this. The first was the dissemination of pre-school education. Pre-school education is where the differences in achievement between schools originate.” said.
Özer said: “Imagine, in the 2000s, the enrollment rate for five-year-olds is 11 percent. That is, 89 percent do not have access to pre-school education. When does the difference between those who have access to pre-school education and those who do not emerge? It appears when school starts. If the education system cannot compensate for this difference, then the advantage produces more advantages, more disadvantages and increases the success gap tremendously. Our education system has actually suffered from this access restriction in pre-school education for years. On August 6, 2021, there were 2 independent kindergartens across Turkey.
When we started this project, we set out to build 3 kindergartens in one year, and we started our project under the auspices of Ms. Emine Erdogan. What was our aim? Our aim was to bring the three-year-old schooling rates closer to the average of the four-year-old schooling rates as much as possible. To increase the five-year-old schooling rate to 100 percent if possible. I got the numbers this morning. We built 2 thousand 321 independent kindergartens in one year. We have done 16 thousand 100 kindergarten classes. Normally, five nursery classes correspond to one kindergarten. Therefore, 16 kindergarten classes correspond to 100 independent kindergartens. When we add 3 thousand 220 to this, we created a capacity of 2 thousand 321 independent kindergartens in a short period of one year. When you look back at the past when the Ministry of National Education built between fifty and seven kindergartens a year, it really is a revolution. We also see the reflections of the revolution in the numbers. Three-year-old schooling rate increased from 5 percent to 541 percent, four-year-old schooling rate from 9 percent to 16 percent, five-year-old schooling rate from 16 percent to 37 percent in one year. These current investments, hopefully, will continue.”
Expressing that they offer equal opportunities for the children of all citizens, regardless of income level and without discrimination, to access education comfortably and free of charge, Özer noted that with equal opportunity in education, the difference in opportunities between schools is reduced. Pointing out that this is the starting point of the aforementioned “10 Thousand Schools in Basic Education” project, Özer said, “It has moved to a point that touches 10 thousand schools, not 39 thousand.” used the phrase.
Özer stated that the biggest beneficiary of this project worth 4 billion liras is the schools in Diyarbakır and said that more than 500 million investments were sent to schools in Diyarbakır.
“Our President shared the results of vocational education with all of Turkey”
Emphasizing that the second critical touch was experienced in vocational education, Özer reminded that the coefficient application in vocational education is one of the biggest barriers to Turkey's development and that they have removed this practice that is an obstacle to development. Özer said, “There were two critical touches that we made. Yesterday, after the cabinet, our President shared the results with the entire Turkish public.” said.
Özer explained the developments related to vocational education with these words: “As you know, there are two channels in vocational education: vocational high schools and vocational education centers. In vocational high schools, we included the sector in all processes and updated the curriculum together. We designed the skills training in the business, the on-the-job and professional initiatives of our teachers, and their training together, but we also opened the door to the construction of a priority vocational training in employment. The second thing we did in vocational high schools was to increase production capacity. To increase the production capacity within the scope of revolving fund. These steps we took bore fruit in a short time. From our production capacity of 200 million, although our target in 2022 is 1.5 billion, we reached a production of 10 billion 1 million in 650 months. The share we distribute to our students is 80 million. We distributed 80 million to our students for their contribution to production. We have distributed 180 million to our teachers, and by the end of the year these numbers will reach much higher figures. For the first time, students from the high-achieving segment began to come to vocational high schools. Vocational high schools started to carry out research and development and intellectual property studies in R&D centers. Vocational high schools now compete with each other. It exports abroad.
We made the most critical move in vocational training centers. Vocational training centers are places where training is provided at school one day a week and skills training is received at the enterprise in a real work environment on other days. In other words, it is the type of education in which we have traditional Ahi culture, apprenticeship, journeyman and mastership training. On December 25, 2021, we made very critical changes in the Vocational Education Law. Before that change, the number of apprentices and journeymen in Turkey was 159 thousand and our 2022 target was to reach 1 million apprentices and journeymen. Yesterday, our President shared it with the whole public. At this point, the number of apprentice journeymen has reached 1 million 100 thousand. Especially small and medium-sized enterprises no longer have a need for apprentices, journeymen and masters. Hopefully, we will continue to support vocational education in a much stronger way, with regard to fulfilling the function of being the driving force in the economic development of our country. These good works have really started to attract attention abroad, and for the first time the OECD's Vocational Education Summit is convening in Turkey. At that summit in Istanbul on Thursday, December 1, we will share these experiences of Turkey with all OECD countries.”
“We have completed all the targets for 2022 before the end of the year”
Pointing out that the third important step is related to the professional development of teachers, Özer noted that there are two different approaches at this point. Özer said, “First of all, we have focused on supporting our teachers' personal and professional initiatives in a multidimensional way, because we know that the more we support our teacher's personal development, the stronger our education system will be.” made its assessment.
Özer said, “We have transitioned from central planning in the Ministry to school-based planning. In other words, for the first time, we sent a budget to schools and paved the way for schools to meet their own teachers' training needs. In 2020, the teaching hours per teacher in this country was only 44. In 2021 it increased to 94 hours. Our target in 2022 was 120 hours. The figure we have come to now is 205 hours. In other words, in this short period of time, we have completed all the targets we set for the year 2022, from pre-school to vocational education, and from there to the professional initiative of teachers, before the end of the year. I thank God. I would like to express my gratitude to all my colleagues.” he said.
Referring to the Teaching Profession Law, Özer said, “Just as our President has supported us in other matters, he has always been with us and supported us in the enactment of the Teaching Profession Law. With the law, the right of 3600 was given to teachers for the first time. For the first time in this country, a law on a professional group was introduced and it was teachers. In that process, trolls stepped in for three or four months. While that process was going on, 95 percent of our teachers with great hearts and those who met the conditions applied for the exam. 95 percent of 99 percent who applied for the exam completed their education. What was the result? 99% of our teachers took the exam. On November 24, our President shared the results with all our teachers. 97 percent of our teachers became head teachers and specialist teachers. In other words, our teachers once again taught, once again taught all of those manipulators. There were 500 thousand teachers in this country in 2000. There are currently 1.2 million teachers. I would also like to thank all our teachers.” made the statement.
Özer said, “We will continue our march day and night to raise young people with the vision of the 'Century of Turkey' recently announced by our President, by joining hands with our esteemed teachers and all our administrators.” He ended his speech with his words.
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