Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer made a speech during the ceremony held on the occasion of cooperation on the inauguration of Artificial Intelligence Workshops at BİLSEMS held in Ahmet Yüksel Özemre Science and Arts Center in İstanbul and stressed that the most important instrument for increasing the quality of human resources which is the most permanent capital of any country is education.

 

Özer reminded that the schooling rate of five year old children was 11 percent and schooling rate in secondary education was 44 percent in early 2000s and 56 percent of teenagers were not enrolled in high schools during this time. Noting that the Ministry has been carrying out a massive campaign since 2002 in order to fill this gap, Özer said that the number of classrooms has increased from 300,000 to 857,000 in the last 19 years.

 

Özer stated that the schooling rate in all levels of education exceeded 95 percent for the first time in the history of the republic and they also lifted all antidemocratic practices such as headscarf ban and co-efficient practices in the last twenty years.

 

Özer stressed that the Ministry has been implementing important social policy programs in order to increase equal opportunity in education and reinforce inclusion in education adding that they have been distributing free text books and free sources to all students, providing conditional education aid to socioeconomically disadvantaged families and free lunch service.

 

Minister Özer reminded that the Ministry has been giving free meals to all 1.8 million students who benefit from transported education and it will provide free meal service to all students enrolled in preschool education in the second term of this school year.

 

"With the beginning of the second term set for February 6, we will give free lunch at all preschool education institutions. Number of students who will benefit from free meal services of our Ministry will increase from 1.8 million to 5 million. For the last twenty year, governments have been implementing education policies that prioritize disadvantaged families. I would like to thank President Erdoğan, the architect of solutions," said Özer.

 

Minister Özer noted that his Ministry will continue to make big investments in order to disseminate preschool education, support vocational education and professional training programs for teachers and increase equal opportunity in education and went on to say that: "BİLSEMs are an important part of these efforts. These centers provided special talented students the opportunity to develop their skills and they increased the competitive force of the country in the global market. Two years ago, the number of BİLSEMs in our country was 185. We have doubled this figure and today approximately 100,000 students are enrolled in 379 BİLSEMs. I have good news; we will inaugurate BİLSEMs in all 922 districts of our country in 2023."

 

Özer reminded that the Ministry and the Turkish Patent and Brand Institutions made cooperation about patent, useful model, brand and design registration as a part of intellectual and industrial property rights campaign.

 

The Ministry set a goal to register 7,500 products in 2022 and registered 8,300 patents, useful models and designs before the end of the year.

 

Özer added that as a part of the first phase of cooperation with Vakıfbank, they will inaugurate 15 artificial intelligence workshops and increase the capacity of BİLSEMs in 2023.