Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer visited the Konya Selçuklu Vocational and Technical Anatolia High School which produces fire extinguisher tubes for schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education.

 

"We have carried out important campaigns in vocational education. From now on, we continue to increase the quality of education in cooperation with the sector as well as the income earned from the production of vocational and technical high schools. Income earned from the production of vocational and technical education which was 200 million liras in 2018 reached 1 billion and 162 million liras in 2021," said Minister Özer.

 

Pointing out that the Ministry has initiated "No more schools with libraries" project, Özer stated that 16 thousand and 361 new libraries were founded at schools within two months and vocational high schools produced library furniture as a part of the project.

 

"These schools also provided the demand for most needed materials during the pandemic varying from ventilators to masks and disinfectants. We are grateful to vocational education. Vocational schools do not only train qualified human resources but also serve for the development of our country and increase its production capacity," noted Minister Özer.

 

Minister Mahmut Özer went on to say that "Important steps about democratization were taken in our country and important investments were made in education in the last 20 years. During this period, the schooling rate has increased to an important level." 

 

Minister Özer noted that the schooling rate was around 200 thousand in the 2000s and this figure reached 2 million recently.

 

"The Ministry aims at opening 3 thousand new kindergartens and 40 thousand new preschool classes and increasing preschool schooling rate among 4 year old children from 35 percent to 70 percent," said Özer.

 

Minister Özer the number of classrooms in the country reached 850 thousand adding that, "Today, our education system consists of 18 million students and 1,2 million teachers. Total number of students and teachers is higher than the population of 150 different countries. OECD countries had increased their schooling rate to 100 percent in the aftermath of World War II and then they focused on increasing the quality of education. Türkiye reached the OECD average in teacher per student figures."

 

Özer stressed that there are 1.2 million teachers in the education system of the country adding that approximately 75 percent of existing teachers were appointed in the last 19 years and the number of students in basic education increased by 3 times during this period.