Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer and Ankara Governor Vasip Şahin participated in the ceremony held at the Kavaklı Primary School in the Altındağ district of Ankara on the occasion of the beginning of the midterm holiday.

Özer distributed report cards to students and advised them to read books during the holiday.

The Minister had the opportunity to chat with teachers, listened to their expectations and told them, "Our teachers deserve the best and we will work in order to provide you better working conditions."

"Students followed mask, social distancing and hygiene rules"

Noting that the school year began on September 6, Minister Özer said, "We are happy to continue face-to-face education for five days a week since then without any interruption in 81 cities of the country. Students followed mask, social distancing and hygiene rules and this made an important contribution to keep the rate of closed classrooms under one percent for five months."

"Heroes of this process are the teachers"

Özer stressed that heroes of this process were the teachers who worked with sacrifice under hard conditions.

"It is not easy to teach with masks and follow all other rules. Vaccination rates of our teachers are higher than the average of our society as well as European countries. I would like to thank them for their exemplary behavior," said Minister Özer.

Minister suggested 18 million students to read at least one book during the midterm holiday

Özer noted that teachers did not assign homework for the midterm holiday adding that, "I assign them homework. I expect them to read at least one book during the holiday. We have established libraries in all schools in order to improve reading culture. We have opened 16361 new libraries and increased the number of books in school libraries from 28 million to 42 million. We are also aiming at increasing the number of digital books to 100 million."

Midterm holiday will not be extended

Concerning rumors that the Ministry will extend the midterm holiday due to increasing coronavirus cases, Minister Özer said, "We have an electronic monitoring system based on scientific data. For the moment, there is no reason for us to extend the midterm holiday. The new term will begin on February 7."