As a part of his visit to Holland organized in order to observe agriculture education practices and boost existing relations between two countries, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer had a meeting with his counterpart Robbert Dijkgraaf.

Özer expressed happiness about the increasing number of high level visits between Holland and Türkiye in recent years and reminded that more than 420 thousand Turkish people are living in Holland and approximately there are 100 thousand students of Turkish origin in the country. Özer noted that these students and Turkish population in the country established an organic tie between two countries.

Stating that Turkish students mostly preferred Holland for their post graduate studies, Özer went on to say that, "There are approximately 1,850 Turkish students enrolled in post graduate programs in your country and nearly 100 of these students are here in this country with our Ministry's scholarship program. We are planning to increase the number of scholarship students within the framework of a cooperation protocol and we would like to manage this process by a coordination department which will be formed between two ministries. Approximately, 5 thousand Turkish students are studying in different parts of the world and Holland is among their first choices."

Özer noted that agriculture is strategically important in the world and problems in this field have global impact and stressed the importance of agricultural education.

"Holland is an example country with its success especially in agricultural education. We are here today in order to get detailed information about agriculture education practices and carry existing cooperation between two countries to a higher level," said Özer.

Özer stated that Türkiye has a large education system including 19 million students and 1.2 million teachers and 3 million students are enrolled in vocational education institutions adding that, "Recently, we have integrated the labor market to our reconstructed vocational education system. Our main priority is agricultural vocational schools and we want to turn all agricultural vocational schools to R&D centers."

Minister Özer said that they would be happy to boost existing relations in education with Holland and reminded that the "Memorandum of Understanding about Higher Education and Vocational Education" draft presented to Dutch officials in 2016 is not signed yet.

"I believe that this memorandum of understanding will make an important contribution to the cooperation between two countries. Turkish main tongue courses which were removed from your primary school education program in 2004 and include this course back to the education program will support the Turkish population living in your country," he stated.

Education in Türkiye is in a good level

Meanwhile, Dutch Minister Dikgraaf expressed his happiness to meet Minister Özer and the accompanying delegation and said that education in Türkiye is at a good level.

Dikgraaf stated that there are very good universities in Türkiye and said that many of his friends visit these universities and are involved in education activities.

"Türkiye made important improvements in education. We will be happy to share our experience and also make cooperation with Türkiye," said Dikgraaf.

A Dutch Ministry official was also present at the meeting that the Ministry is working on a project about including a Turkish to education program as an elective course.

Turkish Ambassador to The Hague Şaban Dişli, Deputy Minister of National Education Sadri Şensoy, Director General for EU and Foreign Relations Hasan Ünsal and  Education Attaché to the Hague Miyase Kaya were also present at the meeting.