Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk commented about his prediction about the place of distance education and online platforms in the Turkish education system in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

Noting that distance education was mentioned two years ago as a part of "secondary education design" and similar plans set out in the 2023 Education Vision but many people failed to understand the importance of distance education during that period and had too many questions.

 

Selçuk stressed the Ministry of National Education has opened digital examination centers including face recognition systems in all cities of the country adding that lesson hours in secondary schools which is currently 8-10 hours a day can be reduced to 6-7 hours and students will find the opportunity to deal with arts, science, culture, sports, club activities, projects and R&D during the remaining 2-3 hours.

 

"Our students are taking 13-14 different courses in high schools while Anglo-Saxon students take 5 to 6 or maximum 7 courses. We must find the answer to this question," said Selçuk and added: "Hybrid education models like distance education platforms including partial face to face education and offer certificates and even diploma to its users will become more common. The project funded by the World Bank aims at establishing a large digital platform in "choose-like-watch" format will address the education needs of everyone."

 

The platform will give training programs in almost every field such as music instruments, apiculture, first aid and chess. This easy to use platform will be free and will be accessible by all people from 7 to 70.  

 

Minister Selçuk said that the platform is a very big project and will be financed by a large budget funded by the World Bank.

 

"It will be a worldwide project," stated Selçuk, "We are working on the infrastructure of the platform. It will respond to all the education needs varying from lifelong learning to formal education from professional improvement programs for teachers to other training programs. We believe that the platform will reach a certain level in a year or two."

 

Ziya Selçuk said that the Ministry has prepared regulation drafts about the continuation of distance education for some courses and went on to say: "We have completed a preliminary study about providing distance education for some courses of high schools and some elective courses of secondary schools next year. Head Council of Education and Morality is working on this project. Students will have to enroll to these courses.

 

Answering a question if he had predicted that the quick development of distance education when the Ministry prepared the 2023 Education Vision, Selçuk said, "During that period, I believed that we would achieve minor development as a part of pilot studies rather than large scale projects during that period. Maybe, it would not be possible for us to achieve such quick digital skill development among teachers in ten years if it wasn't for the pandemic. Under the pandemic circumstances, there is no way other than digital transformation and we have to be successful in this goal."