Number of Books in School Libraries Increased 5 Percent in 100 Months

After enriching the existing libraries with the new libraries built within the scope of the "No School Without a Library" project initiated by the Ministry of National Education on October 26, 2021 in order to reduce the differences in opportunities between schools, the number of books increased by 100 percent in five months, exceeding 56 million.

The "No School Without Library" project, which was initiated by the Ministry of National Education on October 26 under the auspices of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's wife, Emine Erdoğan, in order to reduce the differences in opportunities between schools, was completed on 31 December 2021. Within the scope of the project, new libraries were built in 16 schools that did not have a library. With the new libraries built, the number of books in all schools began to increase. While there were 361 million 28 thousand 677 books in the libraries before the project, this number increased to 694 million 56 thousand 247 with the construction of new libraries and the enrichment of existing libraries in terms of books.

The number of books in kindergartens increased to 740 thousand 574, the number of books in primary schools increased to 20 million 449 thousand 83, and the number of books in secondary schools increased to 16 million 858 thousand 968. While the number of books in high schools increased to 16 million 819 thousand 20, the number of books in other institutions such as public education centers increased to 1 million 379 thousand 538.

Thus, the number of books in school libraries increased by 5 percent in 100 months. The Ministry aims to increase the number of books in libraries to 2022 million by the end of 100.

The number of schools with more than 10 thousand books increased to 163

The number of books in libraries continues to increase. The number of libraries with 10 thousand-20 thousand books increased to 144, and the number of libraries with more than 20 thousand books increased to 19. The number of libraries, whose number of books was between 5 thousand and 10 thousand, increased to 101.

As part of the project, recycling libraries were built in schools with a zero waste approach. With the joint efforts of students and teachers, the first of the recycling libraries, where unused materials are reused, was built in Ağrı, and 81 recycling libraries have been built in 453 provinces so far. With 133 recycling libraries, the most zero-waste library was built in Trabzon. Trabzon was followed by Istanbul with 36 recycling libraries and Mersin with 28 recycling libraries.

Most books in Istanbul

There are 5 million 383 thousand 608 books in school libraries in Istanbul. Istanbul is followed by Bursa with 2 million 975 thousand 565 books, Ankara with 2 million 642 thousand 589 books, Antalya with 2 million 498 thousand 881 books, Gaziantep with 2 million 336 thousand 494 books and Konya with 2 million 135 thousand 364 books. Among the provinces with 1 to 1,5 million books, respectively, are Kocaeli, Hatay, Şanlıurfa, İzmir, Adıyaman, Sakarya, Kayseri, Mersin, Adana and Van.

The highest number of books per student in Bayburt

Bayburt has the highest number of books per student with 12 books. Bayburt is followed by Gümüşhane with 10,49 books, Ardahan with 10 books, Artvin with 9,76 books, Adıyaman with 8,63 books and Tunceli with 8,58 books.

Making an assessment on the subject, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer said: “One of the areas we focus on in order to increase equality of opportunity in education is to reduce the difference in opportunities between schools. In this context, we completed the 'No School Without Library' project, which we started under the auspices of Ms. Emine Erdoğan, in a short period of two months. In a short time, 16 schools have gained their new libraries. At the end of the project, there was no school without a library. With this project, the number of books in our schools increased significantly. With the libraries we built, the number of books in libraries increased by 361 percent in 5 months, exceeding 100 million. We aim to increase the number of our books to 56 million by 2022. Thus, the number of books per student will have increased from 100 to 1,89. I congratulate all my colleagues who successfully carried out the process, our national education directors, district directors, school administrators and teachers of our 6,6 provinces.”