Education matters between two countries were the topic of the meeting between Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer and Speaker of the Canadian Senate George J. Furey.

Noting that many countries have been recently closely monitoring successful steps of the Ministry of National Education of the Republic of Türkiye, Minister Özer said that his Ministry has defined three main themes in order to carry the education system to a higher level.

"First is the reinforcement of equal opportunity in education. We carried out the preschool education campaign and achieved the increase in the schooling rate in preschool education from 78 percent to 93 percent within a year. We have founded libraries in all schools of the country. We have enriched the school environment within the framework of 10,000 Schools in Basic Education project. We have converted more than thousand schools to environmentally friendly schools. We have been distributing free text books to all students for the last twenty years in order to increase the equal opportunity in education. Moreover, we distributed free supplementary study books and sources to students to all students in the country," stated Özer.  

Özer mentioned about projects carried out as a part of education of the whole family adding that the Ministry offers courses to 1 million people every months at the public education centers.

Stressing that the second priority of his Ministry is the professional development of teachers, Minister Özer said that the newly passed Teacher's Profession Law defined teaching as a career profession and the Ministry has initiated school based programs for the professional development training programs for teachers.

Özer went on to say that the third main focus of the Ministry is the reinforcement of vocational education and his Ministry adopted a new approach in vocational education centers which is similar to the dual vocational education in Germany. He noted that Türkiye amended the related law and the number of apprentices and foremen in the country rapidly increased from 160 thousand to 780 thousand.

Minister Özer added that Türkiye will be happy to share its experience in education.

Furey: Your activities concerning equal opportunity and modernization of education deserve admiration

Meanwhile, Speaker of the Canadian Senate George J. Furey said, "Your activities concerning equal opportunity and modernization of education deserve admiration. As a former teacher and administrator, I know the importance of professional development programs. It is impressive that you have increased the training program period of teaches from 44 hours to 192 hours."

Stating that he praises Minister Özer for carrying out many important projects within a short period of time, Furey stated, "I would like to learn more about your activities concerning especially three basic development areas and adopt them to our education system."

Stressing that increasing the number of apprentices and foremen from 160 thousand to 780 thousand within a year is an impressive success, Furey went on to say that, "Like many other countries in the world, we have artisan shortage in some parts of Canada. It is because we fail to keep this issue on the agenda. Lack of artisans may cause problems in the economy. We experience problems in the education curriculum due to lack of update according to the needs of our era. Students prefer to learn on the job at the real workplaces."

Furey said that both his team and the Canada Embassy in Türkiye will keep in touch with the Ministry of National Education in order to boost education cooperation between two countries.

Deputy Minister Petek Aşkar, Director General for EU and Foreign Relations Hasan Ünsal, Canadian Ambassador to Ankara Jamal Khokhar and Canada Interparliamentary Relations Manager Kevinn Pittman were also present at the meeting.