Private schools being put up for sale across country

ISTANBUL

Real estate websites have begun to overflow with ads for private school buildings that are for sale as the summer break in education continues.

While most of these ads are for newly established small-scale primary and secondary education institutions, some of them belong to those who own the naming rights of chain schools as franchises.

Some advertisements sell merely the school building, while others provide choices such as “If the buyer wishes, the tenant can stay.”

On the other hand, there are those that list the school for sale including the students enrolled. As a result, families and their students from schools that have closed or whose owners have changed are unsure what to do.

Speaking to local media, the majority of people putting schools up for sale allege the fact that the education sector is not as profitable as it used to be as a pretext.

Müslüm Taşdan, one of the people who put his private school up for sale in the capital Ankara, stated that it is very expensive to run a private school now.

“The number of students has decreased. It is not worth the effort, it requires a very serious responsibility. There is not much interest in education at the moment, people want to buy the building and use it for different things.”

Meanwhile, representatives of the private school sector stated that especially staff salaries and rents are major expenses.

According to İbrahim Taşel, president of the Private Education Institutions Association (TÖDER), most schools are changing hands, and most problems are in small-scale schools rather than in well-established institutions.

Stating that they spend 70 percent of their income on personnel expenses, Taşel said that with the increase of the minimum wage, most schools’ income and expenditure balance is disturbed.

“In order for our teachers to reach a better income level, we demand the social security institution (SGK) tax burden covered to a certain extent. One and a half million students study in private schools. If there are no private schools, these students will have to transfer to the state,” he added.