Speaking at the Turkey Century Maarif Model promotion programme, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, ‘Our children are frequently confronted with these projects in many areas from cartoons, cinema productions, digital games to social media. In many western countries, especially in the USA, the main concern of families is these deviant movements that objectify children. I believe that we will prevent the scourge of global desexualisation by joining hands together.”
The introductory meeting of the Ministry of National Education’s new curriculum named ‘Turkey Century Education Model’ is being held at Ataşehir Ahmet Keleşoğlu Science High School with the participation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
‘WE ALLOCATED 1 TRILLION 620 BILLION LIARS TO EDUCATION’
Speaking at the introductory meeting, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, ‘I wish that our new opposition model will be beneficial for our students, families, teachers, our country and our nation. I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who contributed to the preparation of our model. Before going into the details of our new model, I would like to express some basic facts. When we started our journey of service to Turkey 21 years ago, representing the will of our beloved nation, we declared that one of our four priorities would be education. As we allocate the lion’s share of the budget to education every year, this year we have kept the tradition and allocated approximately 1 trillion 620 billion liras to education. We act with the awareness that every penny spent on education is an enormous investment in the bright future of Turkey. We mobilise all our means to provide our children with a better, higher quality education that is more suitable for the conditions of the time. The list of our services in education is quite long. It would take a long time to tell what we have done only in the last year. However, I find it useful to share some figures with you and my citizens who are watching us on their screens,’ he said.
‘WITH THESE RATES, WE HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY CAUGHT UP WITH THE OECD AVERAGE’
President Erdoğan said, ‘Distinguished guests, we have taken very comprehensive steps to strengthen equality of opportunity in education, from conditional education aid to increasing housing and scholarships, from free catering to free textbooks and supplementary resources. In the last year alone, we have printed and distributed 19 million 600 thousand teaching materials. Again this year, we delivered 20 million 385 thousand auxiliary resource books to our 8th-12th grade students. Since 2003, we have completed the construction of 372 thousand 995 new classrooms and put them into the service of our education community. In the last year, we have brought 13 thousand 715 new classrooms to our country. We have reduced the number of students per classroom to 23 in primary education and 22 in secondary education. With these rates, we have significantly caught up with the OECD average. In order to strengthen the equality of opportunity, we have increased the pre-school enrolment rate for 5 years old to 95 per cent and 98 per cent in primary education. With approximately 19 million students, over 1 million teachers, over 74 thousand educational institutions, we have become a big family of 20 million in total, Alhamdulillah our family is expanding every year.”
‘WE WILL FURTHER STRENGTHEN OUR EDUCATION ARMY WITH 20 THOUSAND NEW TEACHERS’
Erdoğan said, ‘We are the government that made the highest number of teacher appointments in the history of the Republic. We reinforced our teaching staff with 800 thousand new appointments. In May 2023, we brought 45 thousand teachers together with their students at one time. Thus, we have realised the largest teacher appointment in our history. Likewise, we have completed the appointment of 4 thousand 366 disabled teachers. God willing, we will further strengthen our education army with 20 thousand new teachers we will appoint this year. Our Ministry of National Education carries out the process meticulously and transparently.”
‘WE INCREASED THE ADDITIONAL INDICATORS OF TEACHERS TO 3600’
Erdoğan said, ‘We support our teachers not only in terms of appointments but also in terms of personal rights and financial opportunities. As promised, we increased the additional indicators of teachers to 3600. With the Fatih Project, we installed 619 thousand interactive boards. We eliminated the coefficient differences in university entrance. We gradually extended education to 12 years with the 4+4+4 system. We put an end to the stepchild treatment of vocational schools. We have created the vocational education policy document. We have implemented different projects ranging from in-sector schools to the establishment of vocational orientation workshops in secondary schools. We have completed the preparations for the law on the teaching profession and the establishment of a national education academy. Hopefully, its negotiations will soon begin in our parliament.”
‘I BELIEVE THAT BY JOINING HANDS, WE WILL PREVENT THE SCOURGE OF GLOBAL SEXUALISATION’
Erdoğan said, ‘We have made the Holy Quran, the life of the Prophet and various courses optional. This year, we have expanded the pool of optional courses a little more. We have met the demand from our families by adding courses such as courtesy and etiquette, manners, etiquette, family in Turkish social structure. I have to emphasise here that the family issue is of vital importance for us, as I have underlined in recent days. From a very early age, children are exposed to the impositions of global culture. At the forefront of these are de-sexification projects. From cartoons to cinema productions, from digital games to social media, our children are frequently exposed to these projects. In many western countries, especially in the USA, the main concern of families is these deviant movements that objectify children. I believe that we will prevent the scourge of global desexualisation by joining hands together.”
