Here are the highlights of Minister Özer's comments: 

 

"After a one and a half year long break in face-to-face education, we adamantly kept schools open in this school year."

 

Özer went on to say that: "There is no holiday for us. We immediately started the preparations for the 2022-2023 school year. We had a meeting with approximately 4,000 school administrators in İstanbul as a part of our preparations and we will have a similar meeting in Ankara and İzmir. All of our colleagues will be on the field in order to make assessments about shortcomings. When we look at last school year, we see that we have done right. First few months of face-to-face education were intense. I have visited more than 20 cities in the first two months in order to motivate our colleagues and control the measures."

 

The whole world realized that education cannot be sacrificed under extraordinary conditions. Schools are not designed only for education but they are the places where students have the opportunity to be a part of peer education, cultural, artistic and social activities and where they improve their psychosocial development.  

 

Students develop at schools. No matter how perfectly you design digital platforms for education, it will not be possible to overcome losses that may occur during distance education even if you cure learning loss.

 

Equal opportunity in education is on the agenda of the entire world. Out-of-school factors such as socio-economic level have an important impact on academic success. Inequality gets deeper in an out-of-school environment. Schools compensate for inequalities in society.."

  

Answering a question about learning loss that occurred during distance education, Minister Özer stated:

 

"At the beginning of every school year, teachers made assessments about the previous school years. This year, we have activated compensation mechanisms. Throughout the year, we opened support and training courses for secondary and high school students for the first time in the history of our Ministry. We also provide guidance services not only for teachers but also for teachers and parents in an effort to maintain their psychological resilience.

 

Supplementary sources were a serious problem in Türkiye. We have started a campaign in order to offer supplementary text books and question banks as a part of our compensation mechanisms and also with the purpose of helping disadvantaged families.

 

Noting that the main focus of the Ministry of National Education has always been equal opportunity in education, Özer said, "At the end of the school year on June 17, we have decided to open summer schools for the first time in the history of our Ministry. We did not leave our students alone during the summer holiday. We opened the doors of the Science and Arts Centers (BİLSEMs), too. 105,856 students enrolled in summer courses organized at BİLSEMs in different parts of the country. Number of students who enrolled in mathematics summer schools reached 414 thousand and 131 while 327 thousand and 104 students applied to attend English summer schools."

 

Reminding that the central High School Entrance System (LGS) exam was completed without a hitch, Minister Özer said, "Last year, the rate of students who achieved to enroll in the school of their first choice was 51 percent. Our goal is to increase this figure. Our ultimate goal is to see that students can enroll in the school of their choice without any exam. We are working in an effort to achieve this goal."

 

Minister Özer stressed that Türkiye witnessed a revolution in all levels of education in the last 19 years and added, "Schooling rate among 5 year old children was 11 percent in the 2000s and today this figure is 93 percent. Democratization of education is among our prior goals. When we increased the schooling rate, we had the opportunity to employ 730 thousand new teachers and number of teachers in our education system reached 1,2 million."

 

Making comments about the ranking of Türkiye in the international student surveys, Özer said, "PISA and TIMMS reports reveal that Türkiye is the country which increased mathematics and science literacy most among OECD countries. OECD reports show that we are "good" but good is not enough for us. We will do better."

 

Özer stressed that there has been an important increase in the number of teachers who attended training programs and goal in training programs for 120 hours per teacher every year.

 

Mentioning about his Ministry's activities about increasing schooling rate in preschool education, 1,000 of new kindergartens will be found in İstanbul as a part of 3,000 New Kindergartens Project.