Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer, AK Party Deputy Chairman Binali Yıldırım and AK Party Parliamentary Group Chairman and former Minister of National Education İsmet Yılmaz attended the opening of the GİSBİR Secondary School in İstanbul.

Noting that the world was not prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic and it caused new transformations as well as new beginnings, Özer said that education was affected the most due to the pandemic.

Minister Özer pointed out that schools are the places which not only serve for education and training but also for the personal and psychosocial development of children.

Özer stressed that face-to-face education will not only compensate for the learning loss but also psychosocial resilience and other similar parameters adding that, "We stated that schools must be closed last and opened first when we opened schools on September 6. It is not only a matter of education but also it is a matter of national security. We adamantly continue face-to-face education that we successfully continued without interruption for the last 5 months."

"As of today, the number of students enrolled in vocational education centers reached 320 thousand"

Stating that there has been an important transformation in education in the last 19 years, Özer went on to say that: "A campaign was initiated in order to increase the schooling rate starting from primary school to higher education in every corner of the country and provide easy access to education and we continue this campaign with the same determination."

The number of students enrolled in preschool education which was 200,000 in the 2000s reached 2 million today. Schooling rate in primary, secondary, high schools and higher education increased to the level of OECD countries.

"We were in need of a strong leader like President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who worked night and day for this country. Under his leadership, we did not only increase the number of schools but also increased the quality of education," said Minister Özer.

Yıldırım: Advantage of our country is young brains and its young generation

Meanwhile, AK Party Deputy Chairman Binali Yıldırım said the most important need of human kind is to read, learn, produce knowledge and use it for the benefit of humanity.

"For the last 20 years and especially for the last couple of years, we have allocated the largest portion of our budget to education. "81 Kindergartens in 81 Cities" project carried out in cooperation with the Red Crescent is about to be completed. We are aiming to increase preschool schooling rate to the desired level within 3 years," said Binali Yıldırım.

He said that the advantage of our country is young brains and a young generation adding that, "This young dynamic population will carry us to the level of most developed countries. Türkiye has a bright future. Young people are our future, our energy and our guarantee."