President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during his speech at the ceremony that he shared the excitement of newly appointed teachers adding that, ""We will further strengthen our education and training army with the participation of 15,000 new teachers to be appointed. Thus, we will gain a very serious advantage in the uninterrupted continuation of education services during the pandemic process.

 

Erdoğan expressed determination to ensure that the education of the children is not interrupted.

 

"We make every effort to ensure that our teachers and students are not separated from each other and that our children are not alienated from the school environment. Despite the pandemic, we successfully completed the first semester of the 2021-2022 school year," Erdoğan stated.

 

The government kept the schools open with the efforts of teachers, the measures taken by parents, and the students' compliance with the rules, he noted. 

 

"Of course, we encountered some problems, difficulties and even obstacles during this pandemic. We have been subjected to unfair, baseless and completely exaggerated criticisms from some circles, especially those who have no connection with the nation and its agenda," he added.

 

"They tried to mislead our people by using social media with imaginary information," but the state did not allow anyone, any barrier to come between children and their schools, he said.

 

Turkey has become one of the few states that can continue their education activities throughout the country without interruption despite the hardships caused by the pandemic, Erdoğan said.

 

"We got through this critical period together, by ensuring that all the stakeholders of education come together around the same goal, and by increasing the coordination," Erdoğan said, noting that the government's stance on face-to-face education was highly appreciated by the people.

 

"We have founded modern education institutions"

President Erdoğan said that they have considered every penny allocated to education as an investment for the future of the country.

 

"Within this context, we always allocated the highest share of the government budget to education.  Turkey surpassed many other countries in terms of access to health and education during the pandemic. Many countries failed to even keep the existing number of teachers, and some even cut numbers, while Turkey continued recruiting new teachers," he stated.

 

Erdoğan stressed that they have increased the number of classrooms from 343,0 00 to 607,000 and founded new education institutions in the entire country.

 

"We have come a long way"

President stressed that over the past two years, Türkiye has hired more than 77,000 teachers. Overall, more than 729,000 new teachers have been appointed in the past 19 years since they came to power.

 

Erdoğan noted that the country maintains "a young, dynamic teacher population" with more than 60% of teachers at the age of 40 and below."

 

"Appointments have helped us to catch up with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average in terms of the number of students per teacher. We also managed to improve the rights of teachers. In the past 19 years, Turkey is the only country in Europe which increased the salaries of teachers the most," he stressed.

 

"Our focus is to increase the quality of education"

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went on to say that, "We have completed our infrastructure. From now on, we must focus on increasing the quality of education. This is the duty of teachers."

 

"Teaching Profession Law is on the way"

President Erdoğan pointed out that teachers should work in an effort to improve their professional skills while sharing their knowledge with students and added that the Ministry of National Education provides training and post graduate programs for teachers..

 

He also gave the good news that teaching professional law is on the way.

 

Record in schooling rate

Meanwhile, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer said during the ceremony that there has been an important transformation in education in the last 20 years and schooling rate in all levels of education from preschool to higher education broke records.

 

"The number of students enrolled in preschool institutions increased from 200 thousand to 1.6 million. Schooling rate in higher education increased from 14 percent to 44 percent," Özer stated.