Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk introduced the vocational development program designed for teachers in order to assist them to develop their "student-student", "student-teacher" and "student-material" interaction skills in distance education and prepare interactive digital lesson content and distribute certificates to teachers who successfully completed "Development of Design and Management Skills in Distance Education within the Context of Inclusive Training of Teachers". Selçuk pointed out the rapid changes in technology and said, "We see this program that we conducted in cooperation with UNICEF as an opportunity to allow our teachers to reflect these rapid technological developments to their professions and develop their skills as a part of distance education during this pandemic."

 

Stressing the importance of constant update and transformation need in teaching, Selçuk explained that the Ministry has detected requirements in order to respond to this transformation need. Selçuk stated that the Ministry will continue to offer new contents and education tools and materials for teachers and students adding that, "When I look at the big picture, I see that we are carrying out the largest teachers' training of the history of Turkish education.  This is important. I am happy to see that this training program has disseminated to the veins throughout  the country at the local levels."

 

"Within this context, we did not limit this program with only in-service training; we continue to plan activities in EBA and TRT EBA. Meanwhile, teachers continue to work with sacrifice in an effort to support students without losing their motivation," said Selçuk.

 

Minister Selçuk gave the following information about the program which is being carried out in cooperation with UNICEF: "We focus on the point where design integrates with technology and development of management and design skills in distance education. Approximately 150 thousand teachers completed this training program and we are aiming at completing the training programs of all teachers in 2021. We will also add new training programs for teachers."

 

"With the "V-factory" application, our teachers will be able to carry out many functions such as writing code, presenting interactive environments to students, preparing homework, sharing, and they will be able to enrich their lessons and make their education more effective. Thus, we will cover a distance in developing interest and motivation in the online processes. Of course, what is essential for us is face-to-face training, and we continue to strive for face-to-face training to be implemented as soon as possible under the epidemic conditions and health conditions. In this light, we have moved to a second phase this week, and our teachers' uncompromising enthusiasm and constant efforts are our greatest support. Together, we will shoulder this and do our best to ensure that the children of this country are not deprived of education."

 

Stating that the biggest investment is the investment made in teachers, Minister Selçuk said, "Every investment we make in teachers is an investment for the future of this country and the future of our children. Therefore, I can easily say that our investment in teachers will gradually give results. All the devices, software and education environments are all designed in order to offer quality of education to our children, make the jobs of our teachers easier." Selçuk congratulated teachers who successfully completed the training program and underlined that there are transformations every day and needs that emerge in this line must be considered.

 

Meanwhile, Director General of Teacher Training and Improvement Adnan Boyacı stated that teachers' training system whose infrastructure was founded in 2018 reached a capacity that exceeded 1 million. The project carried out in cooperation with UNICEF for the improvement of teachers in digitalization aimed at supporting teachers to develop their online live lecture skills and the project has three main components.

 

"Role of teachers actually did not change in distance education and online education platforms but the axis of communication between the teacher and student changed. Our first concern was how to motive students in distance education. For example, students psychically were not placed in the classroom but how their physical sitting plan during online classes would reflect to their education. This was our first component. In other words, we try to train students to develop skills about changed classroom management," said Boyacı.

 

Underlining that there are three interactions in traditional classrooms namely, "student-student", "student-teacher", "teacher-material" Boyacı said the Ministry has prepared a skill set in order to reinforce the impact of these three interactions. He stated that the second component was based on effective use of EBA as an education platform.

 

Noting that digital education material preparation for distance education is the third component of the project, Boyacı the Ministry has provided support to approximately 1 million teachers to prepare digital education materials. Boyacı added that the Ministry also prepared another skill set for the effective use of "V-factory" application as a part of the project and 300 thousand teachers will complete their trainings until the end of this year.