Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer opened the Neşet Ertaş Village Life Center with a ceremony held in Kırtıllar village of Kırşehir, the birthplace of folk poet Neşet Ertaş who passed away in 2012.
In his speech at the ceremony, Minister Özer stated that they are planning to open a village life center in Kırtıllar village of Kırşehir within the scope of the Village Life Center project and said, “We wanted to open a village life center in Kırtıllar village, where we will keep the name of our Neşet Ertaş, Bozkırın Tezenesi poet, actually our philosopher, wise, wise person alive. Let's set it up, but it's lucky today. Hopefully, this village life center will continue to keep the name of Neşet Ertaş alive, while serving in the context of meeting the kindergarten and primary school needs of our villagers' children and meeting the course needs of our adults regarding the public education center.” used his statements.
Expressing that the last two decades have been a period in which huge investments have been made regarding access to education, Özer said, “Under the leadership of our President, education investments have been made to every part of Turkey without making any distinction between cities, regions and villages. It went over 95.” said.
Speaking about the schooling rate in the 2000s, Minister Özer said, “Here is the determined stance of our President, by consistently giving the biggest share of the budget to the Ministry of National Education every year, the children of this country were able to access education free of charge in their regions for the first time. This is such a precious thing that if we had not made these investments as the Ministry of National Education under the leadership of our President, we would have missed the second century of the republic.” he said.
Reminding that they have increased the schooling rate at the age of five to 99 percent even though it is not compulsory, Özer stated that some sections claim that they will make the age of five compulsory based on the claim of reform: “The schooling rate in primary school is 99.63; The enrollment rate in secondary school is 99.44 percent. What does this show? It shows how disconnected they are from the field. If the five-year-old schooling rates are around 20 percent or 30 percent, you say, 'I will raise the five-year-old schooling rates above 95 percent. Already 99 percent… In the last two decades, all kinds of opportunities have been mobilized, from conditional education aid to scholarships, from hostel facilities to free transportation, free food, free textbooks, and free auxiliary resources so that the children of this country can meet with education. The cost of these social benefits in 2022 is 525 billion TL. This government has always stood by its citizens. Hopefully, we will increase the capacity for free meals from 2023 million to 6 million as of February 1.8, in the second half of 5. We will provide free meals to all our pre-school children. We will include our hostel schools and all our schools in places that benefit from bussed education. The concern of our President is that this country is very strong in every field and that the story of a Century of Turkey is kept alive in this world. That's why we love our troubles. We continue to work tirelessly day and night for this problem.”
Noting that one step of this is village schools and village life centers, Minister Özer pointed out that the underlying reason for these places to be closed for many years is the migration from villages to districts, from districts to cities and from cities to metropolises. At this point, Özer stated that the equality of opportunity in education was strengthened by the government with bussed education so that students do not become victims, and said, “Especially after the covid-19 epidemic, taking advantage of the reverse migration wave and at the same time, with the awareness that food, agriculture and animal husbandry is now a strategic area, they will go to village life centers, village schools. It started to give life again.” he said.
Stating that in 2022, 2 village schools were repaired and put into the service of the citizens as village life centers, Özer emphasized that the aim here is not just to open a village kindergarten or village primary school.
Özer continued his words as follows: “Our aim is to bring all kinds of courses related to agriculture, animal husbandry and increasing employment skills of our esteemed citizens, and to ensure that those public education courses are organized here without going to Kırşehir center. Hopefully, within three months, we will open all village schools with more than 10 households. Thus, we will turn the village life centers into the life centers of the villages. We will turn it into a square where our women and men socialize, receive education and the surrounding villages come together. This is the purpose of the village life center we opened here. I wish our village life center good luck. Hopefully, we have opened 8 village life centers in Kırşehir so far. In two months we will open 25 more and increase the number to 33. A big thank you to everyone who contributed.”
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