President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan greeted the participants of the summit and expressed his wish that the summit will be blessed for everyone in his video message.

Stressing that education is the strongest instrument for sustainable economic growth and development, Erdoğan said, "No matter where they live, all children have the right to have an access to quality education; it is a universal right. Currently, we have approximately 27 million students, 19 million of them studying in basic education and secondary education and 8 million in higher education. We are using all of our means to raise these children in the best way possible."

Erdoğan said that they have allocated largest share of the budget to education every year in the last 20 years adding that, "We have doubled the number of classrooms, appointed total of 750 thousand teachers, equipped our schools with modern technology, updated education program according to liberal ideas, improved financial and employee personal rights of teachers and carry Türkiye to a level that it can pose an example for other countries."

Noting that Türkiye has achieved important success especially in vocational and technical education, Erdoğan went on to say that, "Firstly, we turned vocational education into a center of attraction by eliminating unfair practices. Later, we established strong cooperation with the real sector in order to provide new opportunities in vocational and technical Anatolia High Schools. These attempts allowed students to learn while working and we updated our education program in cooperation with the sector."

Erdoğan stressed that close cooperation with the private sector also gave positive results in employment rates and said, "Moreover, we include students to the product development activities in 55 R&D centers established in all cities of the country. Number of registered products of vocational schools reached 8 thousand and 269 in 2022 and 74 of these products were commercialized."

President Erdoğan reminded that the Ministry of National Education has made important regulations in 2021 in order to respond to qualified apprentices and foremen needs of the labor market and added, "Pursuant to the amendments 30 percent of minimum wage paid to students as a monthly salary is compensated by the state. Moreover, 12th grade students are getting 50 percent of minimum wage monthly salary. We have reinforced foremen and apprentice education programs with the support mechanisms of our state. Within this framework, the number of apprentices and foremen which was 159 thousand in vocational education centers reached 1 million and 100 thousand within a year."

"This dynamism in vocational education led to an important improvement in women's employment," said Erdoğan, "We achieved to overcome the years long neglect in vocational education and we also succeeded in reinforcing it. I believe that this summit organized in cooperation between the Ministry of National Education and the OECD will provide us the opportunity to learn your valuable ideas. I would like to thank all the people who made contributions to the organization of this summit and I sincerely greet all participants."