Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer made statements regarding the education agenda on TRT Haber live broadcast. Özer stated that after the Presidential 28nd round of elections on 2 May, education will be suspended for one day on 29 May.
Reminding that the date when education and training will end is June 16 in his statements, Minister Özer, in his information on how the system will work on summer schools, stated that great efforts were made primarily for the normalization of education in the earthquake region.
Pointing out that life will not be normalized unless education is normalized in times of emergency, Minister Özer said that in this approach, with the motto of 'education everywhere and under all conditions', it is their center to save the children in the earthquake area from the traumatic environment and bring them together with their teachers.
Noting that the process has progressed successfully, Özer continued: “In the beginning, we took an approach to save our children from trauma and strengthen their psychological resilience with psychoeducation rather than a curriculum-based education. We made a special effort for our children preparing for LGS and YKS. At the point where there are approximately 3 Support and Training Courses, we opened a support course for LGS and YKS preparations. Now we have a project about summer schools across Türkiye. We also have a program for our children and brothers living in the earthquake zone. We will hold a one-month make-up training for those living in this region between August 500st and September 1st. We have reached approximately 1 million students and parents with psychosocial support. We provided all kinds of support to the children of families who had their transfer to the earthquake zone and to the provinces outside the earthquake. In this one-month training, we prepared everything about learning losses in treatment training. Which courses will the program open? What materials will be sent. All of them are about to be published. Our preparations are complete. We will not only end with this, but when the 2-2022 academic year begins, we will make another one-month make-up program while education continues. In other words, we will make a 2023-month make-up training program for our students in this region. At the same time, we opened summer courses in four fields last year. It's about science, art, mathematics and foreign language, English. This year it will continue. We have brought the opportunity for students to benefit from these courses, no matter where they go to in Turkey, not necessarily where they study. We did the same for teachers. When our teachers go to their hometowns in the summer, they can also be assigned as trainers or teachers in the summer courses there. We will continue this tradition. We will support the earthquake zone with additional courses and make-up trainings.”
Speaking about the situation of approximately 250 thousand students who were transferred to other provinces due to the earthquake, Minister Özer stated that the return of the students to their hometowns was very fast, and that as of today, 82 thousand 560 students have returned. Explaining that there was a return to the provinces most affected by the earthquake, Özer said, “About 26 thousand students, including 417 thousand 15 in Kahramanmaraş, 493 thousand 12 in Hatay, 65 thousand 10 in Malatya and 669 thousand 83 in Adıyaman, together with other provinces, have returned. back.” said.
Pointing out that there is information in the OECD report that Turkey increases schooling rates while also increasing quality, Özer said that there were serious problems with schooling in the 2000s, and that in those years, schooling rates were below 50 percent at all levels of education, excluding primary school.
Özer said, “What does this mean? In other words, half of the education age population at any level could not meet and go to school. The 5-year-old schooling rate was 11 percent. Out of 5 children who were supposed to go to pre-school at the age of 100, 89 could not go to school. The same was the case in high school, with 44 percent of the high school population attending school, while 56 percent were out of school. In the last 20 years, physical investments have been made to improve this, and moves have been made to democratize education by removing the coefficient application through headscarf bans through one channel. An education system that is more sensitive to social demands was created. But at the same time, social policies in education such as free books, transported education, free food, scholarships and conditional education were implemented to strengthen equality of opportunity in education.” he said.
Thus, Minister Özer stated that the enrollment rates at the age of 5 rose from 11 percent to 99.9 percent in a short time, adding, “The schooling rate in primary school, 99.54 percent, secondary school 99.17 percent, and high school enrollment rate, which was 44 percent, has now increased to 99.12 percent. In other words, for the first time in the history of the Republic, enrollment rates at all levels of education rose to 99 percent or more. Now we see this in the report. In the report, while this schooling, that is, access to education, increases, the following is expected; quality can be a bit missed. Because you increase the number, the number of students per teacher also increases, so the quality decreases, there can be real declines in performance. Here, Turkey, while achieving this growth, has also improved its quality indicators very well in education, and it draws attention in this OECD report.” shared his knowledge.
Stating that Turkey's enrollment rates for the 5-14 age group exceed the OECD average, Minister Özer said: “While Turkey achieves this growth, you would normally expect the number of students per teacher to increase. On the contrary, Turkey has continuously reduced the number of students per teacher by constantly expanding the system with its new teachers. This is very clearly highlighted in the report. So what is he doing while doing this? When it reduces the number of students per teacher, crowded classrooms disappear. Environments where the teacher can interact with the student in a much more comfortable way are established. There is something much more interesting in the report; The number of students per teacher in high school has come to a much better point than even the OECD. This is stated for the first time in that report. In other words, at this point, Turkey is in a position to compete with OECD countries in terms of both international student achievement studies and the number of students per teacher. This constitutes one of the most important instruments that strengthens Turkey's hand in the transition to the Turkish Century.”
In his statements, Özer also referred to the schooling rates of girls, emphasizing that in the 2000s, the rate of girls' schooling in secondary education was 39 percent, after the transformations in education, this rate rose to over 99 percent, and it surpassed that of boys in higher education. “Currently, the number of unregistered students in primary, secondary and high schools within the scope of compulsory education is 94 thousand 984, that is 95 thousand.” Minister Özer noted that the speculations about unregistered students do not reflect the truth, and that these data are included in national and international reports.