Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer inaugurated the Maturation Institute Culture and Art Center in Samsun. Making a speech at the ceremony attended by Trade Minister Mehmet Muş and many guests, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer stated that Samsun was the city where the first symbolic movements of the foundation of the Republic started and that he was happy to be here.
Stating that he is honored to work with Minister Mehmet Muş in the cabinet, Özer said, “It gives me a special pleasure to make an opening in the city where our esteemed Minister is located, who has overcome the obstacles in increasing the commercial capacity of our country very quickly. I believe that with my esteemed Minister, Samsun will witness a great economic development, not only in the economic sense, but also in production, culture, art and other fields.” said.
Noting that he will also give support from Ordu, Özer said, "I hope we will do our best to develop the country with a different color and a different climate and make it stronger, in Samsun, Ordu, Trabzon, with our esteemed ministers, on the Black Sea coast." used the phrases.
Stating that Turkey has witnessed a revolutionary transformation in education in the last 20 years, Özer underlined that the most permanent capital of countries is human capital and said, “If the most important instrument used to increase the quality of human capital is not education, there will be no production, without education, to walk assertively from the past to the future. It is not possible, there is no art without education, there is nothing without education.” said.
Reminding that after the Second World War, other countries increased their enrollment rates to over 90 percent by investing in education to increase their enrollment rates, Özer said, however, that in the 2000s, the educational landscape in Turkey was very bad, and that in the 2000s, the 5-year-old schooling rate was very bad. He stated that the rate is 11 percent, 44 percent in high school and 14 percent in higher education. Explaining that a huge mobilization in education was initiated under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Özer continued his words as follows:
“Classrooms were built, schools were built. In the 2000s, the number of classrooms in Turkey's 81 provinces was only 300 thousand. Today, we are a country with 857 thousand classrooms. The second move was the move to democratize education, which was made to increase the enrollment rate. In other words, all anti-democratic practices in front of education have been removed.”
Explaining that the first pillar of the mobilization in education is physical investments, the second pillar is the abolition of antidemocratic practices such as the headscarf ban and the application of floor numbers, and the third and most critical pillar is the social policies implemented to strengthen equality of opportunity in education, Minister Özer said: "In the last 20 years in this country, The books were distributed free of charge. We activated auxiliary resources last year. We distributed 190 million helpful resources for free. Conditional education grants were introduced. In other words, financial support was provided to families on the condition that their children continue their education. Scholarships have been awarded. Those poor people, who could not access education with bussed education, got their schools free of charge within the scope of bussed education. And free meals were introduced for the first time. The one that started it was, before this period, there was no such thing as free food. 1,8 million students were getting free meals. As of February 6, we increased this to 5 million. We provide free food to all our children in pre-school education, to all our puppies. The current cost of these social policies, the cost of social policies in the last twenty years is 525 billion TL. So what was the result? The result was this: The enrollment rate at the age of five rose from 11 percent to 99,86 percent. The net enrollment rate in secondary education increased from 44 percent to 99,17 percent. The net enrollment rate in higher education increased from 14 percent to 47 percent. In other words, the last twenty years have corresponded to a period in which this country has used its human capital in the most productive way.”
Emphasizing that these practices have two winners, Minister Özer said, “The first is the poor. You know, in that Turkish Century song, he says 'Let the oppressed sing their songs'. The oppressed sang their songs in this period. The second was women. Although the average schooling rate of our girls in secondary education was 44 percent, it was 39 percent. It has now risen to 99 percent. The enrollment rate of girls and the enrollment rate of women surpassed boys for the first time. Since 2014, the schooling rate of women in higher education has exceeded that of men.” said.