Aydıncık Village Life Center Opened

The village life center was opened with a ceremony held in Aydıncık village of Altındağ district of Ankara within the scope of the project of reopening and transforming village primary schools, which are not actively used by the Ministry of National Education, into living centers.

Speaking at the opening of Aydıncık Primary School and Village Life Center, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer stated that he is very happy that the village life center project, which was initiated in Samsun, was implemented in Ankara as well. Pointing to the point reached in education in the last twenty years, Özer said, “The last twenty years have been a period in which the children of the country can easily access all levels of education from their regions. For this, very important investments were made by declaring education mobilization in 81 provinces and 922 districts.” he said.

Reminding that the Ministry of National Education has an education system with approximately 19 million students and 1.2 million teachers, Özer said, “The total of this education system is more than the population of nearly 150 countries. It's a huge system. Now, the most important feature of this critical process is the increase in the schooling rates of the age population at all levels of education.” said.

Stating that the schooling rates in all levels of education in Turkey have increased and approached developed countries, Özer noted that Turkey reached this stage with a delay of 70 years in the last twenty years.

Emphasizing that the most permanent and powerful capital is the country's human capital, Özer said that the last two decades have been a period in which the antidemocratic practices in front of education were abolished and social demands in the field of education were met.

Stating that the process did not progress homogeneously in retrospect, Özer stated that he expressed his gratitude to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his contribution and support to education despite many operations.

Reminding that Turkey has witnessed migration from villages to districts, from districts to cities, and from cities to metropolises, Minister Özer said that the transported education system has been put forward so that the children in the villages, whose number of students are decreasing, are not deprived of education.

Stating that students are transported to the nearest schools free of charge and lunch is provided to students who benefit from bussed education, Özer stated that the annual cost of this project is approximately 6-7 billion liras.

Underlining that it is not possible to increase access to education unless social policies are implemented, Minister Özer continued his words as follows: “Especially after the Kovid-19 process, people started to move slowly from metropolises to cities, from cities to districts, from districts to villages. Just as countries need to control the processes related to energy supply very well today, agriculture and animal husbandry have become the most critical areas of countries due to the extraordinary situation in food supply chains. Considering these trends and natural flows, we said that let's save our schools in villages from this idle situation and open them to the access of our citizens. For this, we planned to open village primary schools in the first plan, and by changing the regulation, we paved the way for opening village primary schools in all our desired villages, regardless of the number of students.”

With the regulation change, 12 thousand children met with pre-school education

Reminding that the criteria for opening kindergartens and kindergartens in village schools were reduced from 10 students to at least 5 students in order to increase access to pre-school education, one of the priority areas in this period, Özer said, “We made a very simple move. We reduced the number of students to 5. Our 1.800 thousand children in 12 villages in Turkey found a place in kindergartens only with this regulation change.” said.

Minister Özer said that with the investments made in pre-school education, more than 5 children aged 4 have started to attend kindergartens and kindergartens in the last period. We will increase this figure to 11 percent until he said.

Explaining that village life centers are not limited to village primary school and village kindergarten, Özer said: “At the same time, we said that there may be no students in our villages, we cannot use it as a village primary school. There are no students, we cannot use the village as a kindergarten. So, how are we going to use that building? Then we will open a public education center. There will definitely be a public education center in all village life centers. There, our citizens will be able to access whatever education they want on agriculture, animal husbandry or personal development, without going to Altındağ or Ankara. If there is no possibility to open it as a public education center, we will turn it into summer camps together with our Ministry of Youth and Sports. In other words, in village life centers that will have the opportunity to use it in a multifunctional way, from primary school to kindergarten, from public education center to youth camp…”

7 million 7 thousand 142 citizens were reached in 529 months in public education centers

Stating that the Ministry of National Education is at the service of citizens from all age groups with lifelong learning institutions, Özer continued his words by announcing that they announced a mobilization in this area this year as well:

“Last year, the number of trainees benefiting from public education centers was around five million. In 2022, we set a target of reaching at least 1 million citizens every month. At the end of 7 months, we have reached 7 million 142 thousand 529 citizens and approximately 70 percent of this is our women. In other words, we will continue to stand by our women with all kinds of support that will increase their life skills if they are housewives, in order to make our women stronger, especially to take a more solid step in the labor market.”

Noting that the demands of master trainers in public education centers and maturation institutes to increase their wages have been fulfilled, Özer said that there are no obstacles to reach the target of reaching 12 million citizens in public education centers by the end of the year.

1000 village life centers will be opened in the new academic year

Özer stated that they opened the first of the village life centers in Samsun; He stated that they continued with Bitlis, Izmir and Istanbul after that, and today they made the first opening in Ankara.

Noting that they are working to make village life centers very efficient places, Minister Özer said, “Hopefully, when the 12-2022 academic year starts on September 2023, we will have the opportunity to open 1000 village schools as public education centers, village primary schools, kindergartens and the Kulliye is very beautiful. We will have the opportunity to share this step with the whole public with a publicity.” said.

Thanking everyone who contributed to the process, Minister Mahmut Özer wished Aydıncık Village Life Center to be beneficial.