The Ministry of National Education which bolstered the Education Information Network (EBA) infrastructure with artificial intelligence systems in line with its "Justice of Opportunity in Education" philosophy on February 10 2020 when Covid-19 was not a global pandemic, was among the first countries that started distance education in the aftermath of the recess in education due to the pandemic.

 

With approximately 3.1 billion clicks during distance education, EBA ranked 10th among the most visited websites in Turkey and 3rd among the most visited education sites in the world. EBA mobile application was downloaded to Android devices for 16.7 million times and to IOS devices for 1.8 million times. Throughout distance education, 7 million 383 thousand and 213 students and 1 million 30 thousand and 516 teachers used EBA. 1 million 170 thousand and 168 students and 189 thousand and 477 teachers actively used EBA Academic Support application and total of 5 million 954 thousand and 174 students used live classroom application via EBA. During this process, more than 8 million students used the internet platform.

 

Through rapid and strong cooperation with TRT and Türksat, three different television stations namely TRT EBA TV Primary School, TRT EBA TV Secondary School and TRT EBA TV High School provided education services to users. Inspired by all colors of school life, the Ministry has broadcasted special education in an effort to maintain bonds between students and the schools and classes.

 

Between March 23, 2020 - June 19, 2020, total of 2 thousand and 516 hours of education programs were produced for TRT EBA TV Primary School, TRT EBA TV Secondary School and TRT EBA TV High School and they were taped in 10 television studios in Ankara and in İstanbul. 674 teachers from 93 branches worked for the production of 2 thousand and 358 class videos and 211 activities videos.

 

There is the labor and hard work of thousands of people and Turkey's innovative power behind this big success achieved within a very short period of time. The Ministry of National Education which reinforced its distance education infrastructure in terms of both content and technique, made a call and organized a meeting under the title of "I have an Idea about Distance Education."

 

Addressing the opening of the meeting, Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk said, "We organized this meeting in order to evaluate distance education experiences during Covid-19 pandemic and share our policies and exchange ideas with experts. We are able to invite only a few of our experts due to the pandemic. We are aware that we have many other experts in this field. Unfortunately, we could not invite a majority of them."

 

Minister Selçuk made a call to all people who say, "I have an idea about distance education" and noted, "Not only experts but school principals and families have many original ideas. We have opened a sharing website named, "I Have an Idea About Distance Education" in order to note all these ideas. Everyone can share their views about distance education. We need everybody's opinions."

 

Underlining that humanitarian, moral and conscientious aspects of distance education as important as the applications and figures, Minister Selçuk said, "We believe that distance education must pay attention to these aspects. School is not only a place where we educate students, it is also a place where students experience life. Distance education must be like schools. The education platform should reflect the warmth and sincerity of the school in addition to lesson contents."

 

You can visit "I have an idea about distance education" sharing sites in order to convey your ideas to the Ministry of National Education and make a contribution to distance education in Turkey and assume responsibility: uzaktanegitimebirfikrimvar.meb.gov.tr