Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer attended the opening ceremony of the monument built in memory of teachers and education soldiers who lost their lives in the earthquake in the Teacher Memorial Forest in Keçiören. In his speech at the opening ceremony, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer, wishing God's mercy to all the teachers who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks and the earthquake, stated that he was on the field with all his colleagues to heal the wounds quickly after the earthquakes on 6 February.
Expressing that they have passed two critical thresholds in the last two or three years, Özer said; He explained that the first of these was the Kovid epidemic, and the second was the February 6 earthquakes. Özer stated that the normalization in the Kovid process occurred because educational institutions were normalized, and that for a year and a half, children stayed away from their teachers and schools, which are places where inequalities in the society are minimized. Stating that those who lost the most in that process were those with a relatively low socioeconomic level, Özer continued his words as follows: “Thank God, I am looking at the last twenty months that we have been ministers. We did a lot of things. Pre-school education, vocational education, teaching profession law, village schools, but there are two critical contributions that we have made to the future of this country. One of them was the will to open schools despite all kinds of conditions and impositions in Kovid. At the handover ceremony, we set out with the emphasis that schools are the first places to be opened and the last to be closed, and with the will that we will not wait for the case to reset to open schools, and we did not close our schools for a single day. Just as we have shown to the whole society that schools will not be closed during the Kovid process…”
Özer, who also shared information about the process after the 6 February earthquakes, said: “As the Minister of National Education, I am really proud of all our friends. Our deputy ministers, general directors, heads of departments, administrative staff, and teachers went to the field as of February 6 and joined them not only to open educational institutions, but to deal with the problems of the citizens, to produce a cure for their problems, and if we have come to these days, life is gradually normalizing there If it has entered the trend, it has been thanks to the contributions of our teachers. So the first thing we have to do under extraordinary circumstances is to open schools. For the normalization of life… So from now on, our motto is to continue education everywhere and under all conditions.”
Minister Özer, explaining that after passing these two critical thresholds, a serious experience has been formed in the acquis of the Ministry of National Education, said, “We have made the greatest contribution to the future of this country in these two processes. Together with you, our esteemed colleagues.” said.
Explaining that they wanted to create a monument in memory of the teachers we lost in the earthquake, Özer stated that the teachers were the pride of this country, and stated that during the epidemic period, the teachers were working in loyalty groups, disregarding their lives, and that vocational high schools contributed with products such as masks and face shields by writing epics.
Reminding what happened in the first days after the earthquake, Özer said, “Only I did not go to the region. All of our friends focused on the products that the citizens needed, the need for shelter, the need for food and drink. I would also like to thank our General Manager of Construction Real Estate and our Deputy Minister. They really showed that our schools are solid and reliable. Especially in the last three or four years, serious investments have been made in retrofitting. A significant contribution was made to the demolition works. 465 thousand of our citizens stayed in our schools, dormitories and teachers' homes. One of the most needed things in those days was shelter. The second was the need to eat and drink. Two things came together. On February 6, we had made our preparations for pre-school meals all over Turkey. We used all of those preparations in that region. On the other hand, food and beverage departments in vocational education, our teacher's houses, our practice hotels started to produce food and needed meals quickly. We have reached such a point that the institutions of the Ministry of National Education are able to provide two million hot meals a day.” used the phrases.
Noting that vocational high schools have reached the capacity to produce 1 million 800 thousand hot breads per day, while public education centers, maturation institutes and vocational high schools have become able to produce all the products that citizens need, Minister Özer underlined that this geography is the geography of the heart. Özer said, “Our teachers do not think about themselves when there is a problem, but the people around them. If there is a problem somewhere, our teachers are the first to run. When there was an earthquake on February 6, when screams rose from there, they did not look to their right or left, and they were on the field without waiting for the Ministry's instruction. Our 40 thousand teachers worked and they are still in the region. I am grateful to all of them, and this society, the State of the Republic of Turkey, is also grateful to our teachers.” said.
Expressing that they came together to commemorate the teachers lost in the earthquake once again with mercy and gratitude at the opening of the monument, Minister Mahmut Özer concluded his speech with the hope that "such suffering will not happen again".
After his speech, Minister Özer presented a certificate of achievement to Erhan Karasüleymanoğlu, the visual arts teacher who designed the monument.