In addition to Minister Özeri science historian Prof. Dr. İhsan Fazlıoğlu, his spouse Şükran Fazlıoğlu, İstanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya, Üsküdar Mayor Hilmi Türkmen, Staff Manager of the Ministry Fehmi Rasim Çelik, Director General for Secondary Education Halil İbrahim Topçu and Director General for Basic Education Tuncay Morkoç were present at the ceremony.  

 

Minister Özer pointed out that his Ministry had initiated the "No More Schools Without Libraries" campaign on October 26 and completed it within two months adding that, "We have founded a total of 16,361 libraries in all parts of Türkiye. Actually, it is a record. Approximately 750 of these libraries were founded in İstanbul. I can comfortably say that there are no schools without libraries in our country."

 

Stressing that books have a major role in the world of thought, Minister Özer stated that the second step of the campaign was to increase the number of books in school libraries.

 

"There were 28 million books at school libraries when we started the project. Now, there are 70 million books. We have increased the number of books within a short period of time and we are aiming at increasing the number of books at school libraries to 100 million until the end of 2022," said Özer.

 

Minister Özer went on to say that they have entered the third phase in the library campaign and they are naming school libraries after people who deal with the problems of the country, who show youth the right path and reinforce their relationship with our old civilization.

 

"I am a reader of the works of İhsan Fazlıoğlu. I have read all of his books. He is a person who promoted our civilization to younger generations and introduced all dimensions of values of our country," noted Özer.

  

He said that youth is the future and eye of the apple of our country.