Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer noted during his speech at the launch of the "Vocational High School Students Meet Families" project that our country achieved an important transformation in the last 19 years.

 

Mentioning increasing schooling rates in all levels of education, Özer stressed that Türkiye recently achieved the schooling rate average of developed OECD countries that they had achieved in the aftermath of World War II.

 

"Schooling rate among 5 year old children, which was 14 percent in the 2000s, reached 90 percent today. Schooling rate in secondary education increased from 44 percent to 90 percent. Socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and female students benefit most from the schooling campaign carried out by our Ministry in the last 19 years," said Özer.

 

Minister Özer reminded that there were 500,000 teachers in the education system in 2002 and 43 percent of those were women adding that, "Today, there are 1,2 million teachers in our education system and 60 percent of them are female teachers."

 

Moreover, the Ministry had taken important steps in democratization of the education system and considered the demands of the society in its actions.

 

"Under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, we have rapidly reached the level of OECD average in education. When we consider the last 19 years, we see that the largest share of the budget is allocated to education," said Özer.

 

 

The Ministry of National Education has been carrying out projects in cooperation with the private sector in an effort to reinforce the "Education, production and employment" cycle and increase employment figures.

 

"We concentrated on production in vocational education. Production has three advantages. First of all, students gained the experience during applied courses and they had no difficulty when they started working. Secondly, it increases employment rates. Third and most important advantage is salary support to students," stated Özer.

 

Özer noted that under the direction of President Erdoğan, the Ministry set the goal of reaching 1,5 billion lira income from the production of vocational high schools. Production capacity in the first three months of 2022 was increased by 200 percent when compared to the figures of last year.

  

Minister Özer stated that the next step in vocational education is increasing the intellectual property rights and reminded that these schools recently achieved to register more than 200 products every year. Özer said that the Ministry has founded 52 research and development centers in every city of the country in order to raise awareness about intellectual and industrial property rights.

 

Noting that transformation in the vocational high schools made an important contribution to the country during the Covid-19 pandemic, Özer reminded that entire world was unprepared against the pandemic and vocational high schools produced all required materials varying from masks to disinfectants, from facial guards to disposable overalls. They also produced ventilators and rapid antigen kits.

 

As a part of the project, vocational high school students will help families in need.

 

"Students will pay periodical visits to families, they will repair houses, take care of the family members and even cut their hair. During Ramadan, they will bake bread and take them to the families in need," said Özer.