Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk stressed that the Ministry has developed manual materials in order to support both face to face education and distance education during his speech at the launch of "My Book is Always Open; at School, at Home, when I am with my Teacher and my Family" workbook for primary school students and digital work pages for secondary school students. "This time, we are offering a more comprehensive study. Carrying out face to face and distance education together, change and differentiation in the needs are giving us new duties. We are working in an effort to develop activities which can be used simultaneously by every grade students."

 

Pointing out that Turkey is passing through a period when time and place is expanding, Selçuk underlined that children are getting education not only at home or at school but also online and offline environments. 

 

Selçuk stated that the Ministry wants to prioritize some concepts during such process and adding that these concepts should include offering sources according to the individual development of children by considering their needs and the changing education system and supporting teachers.

 

Minister Selçuk gave the following information about the reference books and digital materials prepared for the students: "There has been a constant request for workbooks and sources other than textbooks. We responded to these demands. We delivered 17.5 million reference books on science, maths, Turkish, life sciences and social studies. These are the sources which can be used by students in addition to their textbooks. We also prepared digital sources for secondary school students.   16 books made up of 112 fascicules for all grades of secondary schools were prepared and put into service for students and teachers in EBA. It is expected that approximately 5 million students will benefit online from these reference books."

 

Minister Selçuk said the Ministry has have carried out field studies and learned the requirements of teachers and parents, observed the needs at schools and shortcomings in the lectures and finally designed the contents based on these thousands of feedbacks.

 

Noting that in addition to textbooks or workbooks, the term "My Book is Always Open" also includes activities that children do at home, Selçuk said, the Ministry also prepared "Game at Home" book for mid-term break.

 

Selçuk stressed that the Ministry wanted children to read more books as they are crucial for the mental and emotional development.

 

Addressing students who are on the mid-term break and their parents, Selçuk said, "I have a request from you: Please stay at home during the break unless there is an emergency. The pandemic is forcing us to do so. As educators, it is clear that we want to keep schools open all the time but current conditions due to the pandemic force us to prioritize measures. I want to repeat my request, wear masks because this is what our students need."

Meanwhile, the Director General of Basic Education Cem Gençoğlu stressed that the Covid-19 pandemic forced the use of distance education and face to face education together and conditions forced the Ministry to consider the development and learning differences among students.

 

Stating that due to this reason, it is necessary to support the learning process of students, Gençoğlu said that the Ministry has developed and designed printed or electronic rich contents in addition to textbooks during this hard period.  

 

After the distribution of free textbooks to 18 million students, the Ministry also distributed 17.5 million reference books to primary, secondary and high school students free of charge that will be useful for their classes.

 

14 workbooks specially prepared for every grade of primary schools were distributed free to 4 million 953 thousand and 877 students during the 2020-2021 school year and they were also posted in the EBA web-site.

 

16 books made up of 112 fascicules for all grades of secondary schools were prepared and put into service for students and teachers in EBA. It is expected that approximately 5 million students will benefit online from these reference books.