13 October 2021 12:37

"Supplementary reference books are distributed for free"

The Minister of National Education visited the Ağrı Governor's Office as a part of his official program in the province. Özer said during his statement to the press that the Ministry of National Education is distributing free supplementary reference books for all grades and levels of education.

"There are some allegations about supplementary reference books. The Ministry of National Education and our government have been distributing free books for years in order to provide equal opportunities in education. In addition to free textbooks, the Ministry is distributing supplementary reference books and sources in the first week of every month. These sources are either available to the use of all of our students and teachers on the internet or distributed free. Today, we have good news for you and we have started the distribution of 40 thousand printed supplementary reference books to students. We will also distribute 1000 tablet computers."

Noting that the Ministry will prepare supplementary education materials, Özer said, "We will open these materials to the free use of our people. Provincial directorates of national education will publish them and distribute them to especially socio-economically disadvantaged families."

Minister Özer also mentioned face-to-face education saying that the first 6 weeks of the new school year has been successfully completed in 81 cities and the process continues as planned.

"We have developed a system that foresees classroom and/or case based suspensions in face-to-face education. In case of a positive case or close contact with a positive case in a classroom, face-to-face education is suspended for 10 days. Students continue their education through live lectures and digital platforms."

"As of today, there are no closed schools in the country"

Minister Özer stressed that till now only 3 schools were closed due to the pandemic adding that, "These schools continued face-to-face education after a 10 day long recess. Our education system is gigantic. It includes approximately 20 million people including 18 million students, 1.2 million teachers and more than 100 thousand education workers. There are 71 thousand and 320 schools, 57 thousand and 108 of them being state schools in the education system. As of today, there are no closed schools. The Ministry of National Education has been implementing this process in line with suggestions of the Ministry of Health and Health Science Board."

Özer stressed that the high vaccination rate is an important factor in the continuation of face-to-face education and went on to say: "Teachers have the highest vaccination rate among other professions in Turkey. As of today, rate of teachers who got their first dose of vaccination is 93 percent and rate of teachers who got two doses of vaccination is 86. Rate of teachers who are immune to the Corona virus is 5 percent. This rate is higher than many European countries such as Finland, Sweden and Germany."

"Vaccination rate among students increases"

Noting that increasing the vaccination rate among students helped the Ministry to keep schools open, Özer said, "One of our important advantages is increasing the vaccination rate among students who are between 15 to 18 years old. At this point, the biggest responsibility belongs to parents. In other words, parents have to protect themselves against the virus and they have to increase their vaccination rate so that we can continue face-to-face education. Actually, this responsibility is not upon the shoulders of the Ministry. This is the responsibility of all people of this country. Till now, we passed these six weeks with success. With the will of Allah, the process will go smoothly."

150 million lira investment to Ağrı

Later, Minister Özer attended the Provincial Education Assessment Meeting. Making statements after the meeting, Özer said that the 107 million lira investment program for Ağrı still continues in addition to upcoming the 150 million lira investment program.

"We have invested 150 million liras for the construction of new school buildings in Ağrı. Today, we have discussed what must be done about increasing the quality of education in the city and decided to make new investments within this framework."

14 new education institutions will be opened in the city

Özer stated that the Ministry will open a 100 student capacity vocational high school with dormitory and 24 classrooms in city of Doğubayazıt and went on to say: "We prioritize basic education and kindergarten investments at the local level. We have to improve accession to preschool education in order to increase equal opportunity in education. We have decided to open 6 primary schools, 5 secondary schools, 2 kindergartens and a special education kindergarten in Ağrı and its districts. We will allocate approximately 150 million liras for the construction of school buildings."

Noting that they will allocate additional 18 million liras for the renovation works of existing schools, Özer stressed Ağrı Mayor Savcı Sayan carried out important activities in order to respond to the basic needs of sports centers in 20 schools in the city.

Özer said that the Ministry allocated 6,5 million liras for the natural gas connection of school buildings and added: "Before my visit to Ağrı, we had completed the bidding process of 2 kindergarten, 8 primary school and 12 secondary school buildings. We have made important investments in the city. We will continue to make investments for preschool education in the entire country. As known, we have decided to build 100 kindergarten buildings in İstanbul and we will make further investments for the construction of new kindergarten buildings in Ağrı. I would like to thank Ağrı Mayor for his contribution to the renewal of school libraries and sports centers."

As a part of his visit to Ağrı, Minister Özer visited the Seyit Ali Onbaşı Kindergarten and the Alpaslan Secondary school. He distributed free education materials to students.