President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer rang the bell for the first lesson at the ceremony held at Sancaktepe Arif Nihat Asya Anatolian High School for the opening of the 2022-2023 academic year.
Speaking at the 2022-2023 Academic Year Opening Program ceremony, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer started his speech by wishing the new academic year to be beneficial. Expressing his gratitude to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his participation in the ceremony, Özer said that he also commemorated Arif Nihat Asya, whose name is given to the campus, with mercy. Özer said, “I wish long life to our teacher Aziz Sancar, who is also in this campus and whose name we have given to the science and art center. On the occasion of the opening of an academic year, I commemorate all our teachers who were martyred in the line of duty with mercy and gratitude. I wish God's mercy on Özge Kılıç, who lost her life as a result of a traffic accident on the way to Erzurum, her first place of duty.” used the phrase.
Stating that the last 20 years correspond to a very rare period in the history of the Republic of Turkey with revolutionary transformations in education, Özer said, “It is a period in which huge investments are made so that the children of this country can easily access all levels of education, from pre-school to secondary education, from secondary education to higher education. In this period, for the first time, enrollment rates in pre-primary education rose from 11 percent to 93 percent, enrollment rates in secondary education from 44 percent to 90 percent, and from 14 percent to 48 percent in higher education.” he said.
Reminding that huge investments were made in every part of Turkey for the said mobilization in education, Özer continued as follows:
“The number of our classrooms, which is around 300 thousand, has increased to 857 thousand as of today. So close to 1 million. Is that just done? No. In this period, all anti-democratic practices that were put in front of education before the 2000s were abolished. Remember, in this country, there was a headscarf barrier in front of girls' access to education for the children of this country. They were suffering from being a pariah in their own country with painful stories at the doors of higher education institutions. Those who had the opportunity had to go abroad and leave their own country to receive education.”
Stating that those who talk about women's rights and the brain drain did not talk about what happened that day due to the headscarf ban, Minister Özer stated that not only the headscarf ban was lifted during this period, but also the coefficient that hinders the graduates of vocational high schools and imam hatip high schools, and said:
“The tutelage centers could not tolerate a district governor, governor, general manager or minister who graduated from imam hatip. That's why they didn't want academically successful children to go to imam hatip schools, but alhamdulillah we have a President who is an imam hatip graduate. They destroyed the vocational high schools so that this country could not raise the human resources needed by the labor market and could not provide its economic development. Here, these obstacles related to both imam hatip high schools and vocational high schools were removed in this period. For the first time, elective courses were offered not only in the imam hatip high school, but also in all our other schools so that the children of this Muslim community could learn about the life of their prophet, learn the Qur'an and learn religious knowledge. While our headscarved women could not access higher education, after those bans were lifted, our headscarved teachers entered their classrooms in the education system. Today, about 1.2 percent of our 59 million teachers are women.”
Stating that under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the children of this country have the opportunity to access the highest quality education regardless of their income level and location, Özer said, on this occasion, that he allocated the largest budget to education in the last 20 years, led huge investments in education, and He noted that he expressed his gratitude for removing the anti-democratic barriers to education.
“We prepared for the 2022-2023 academic year with great enthusiasm”
Expressing that they are preparing for the new academic year with great excitement, Minister Mahmut Özer said, “After completing the 17-2021 academic year on June 2022, we announced a mobilization throughout the country. We wanted to make a very good start with our 19 million students and 1.2 million teachers without any problems.” used the phrases.
“We fixed the co-source problem”
Stating that free textbooks are prepared on the desks of all students in order to strengthen equality of opportunity in education, Özer said, “We did not stop there. With the instructions of our President, for the first time, we have solved the problem of auxiliary resources, which has been a serious financial burden on our esteemed parents, as a problem in our education system for many years, and for the first time, as of the 2022-2023 academic year, not only textbooks but also 136 million auxiliary resources will be placed on the desk of all our students. We left it.” said. Noting that thus, the problem of auxiliary resources in schools has been completely resolved, Özer stated that the cleaning staff, who also participated in the cleaning of schools, started to work in schools for the first time this year, one week before the start of the academic year.
A budget of 3 billion 750 million lira was sent to all schools
Pointing out that for the first time, all schools in the education system have their budgets sent directly, Özer said, “We wanted our schools to provide cleaning materials, stationery, minor repairs, and most importantly, educational materials and other equipment, without the need of anyone. In this context, we are very happy to have sent a budget of 3 billion 750 million to all our schools.” said.
Stating that they have also completely solved the problem of donations during registration, which is a chronic problem of the education system, Özer said, “Our schools have been able to use 2 billion 150 million of the budget we have sent to meet the needs of our schools so far. Still, 1 billion 600 million liras in the budget of our schools are ready to meet the needs of the schools. Is it possible that a government that has invested so much in education cannot meet the school needs? It is not possible. This is the first time we have done this, I hope, we will continue this application of sending the budget.” he said.
While explaining that they have completed the major repair and strengthening of 4 thousand 256 schools, Özer stated that they are very happy to enter education prepared with the 10.000 Schools in Basic Education project, new schools, new kindergartens and village life centers. Özer concluded his words as follows:
“Of course, it is not possible for these to be done by the Ministry of National Education alone. As I just mentioned, without a leader like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, all the children of this country would not be able to access education for free in this way. These opportunities could not be mobilized in all our schools. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to our President for honoring our opening with his presence. I wish the 2022-2023 academic year all our students, all our teachers, mothers, fathers, and all of our Turkey a good luck and offer my respects.”
After their speeches, President Erdoğan and Minister Özer rang the bell for the first lesson with the students.
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