Turkey's Education Ministry to launch new road map in October: Minister

ANKARA

Turkey's National Education Ministry will reveal its future education roadmap on Oct. 15, Education Minister Ziya Selçuk said, stating that educational policymaking requires the “ability to see the long-term.” 

“We will reveal our visionary document on Oct. 15. Many people have been expecting action, as I have noticed on social media. I am a scientist and I cannot come up with a plan without data. People should be patient until Oct. 15,” Selçuk said in a televised interview on state-run TRT on Sept. 17.

“I purposely prefer not to take emergency action. Education is a long-term activity. We are running a marathon,” he added.

His comments came as Turkey’s academic year began on Sept. 10 with “adaptation week” for students in their first year in primary, secondary and high schools who went to school a week earlier to make it easier to adapt to their educational scheme.

Last year, a total of 17.9 million students were enrolled in Turkey’s private and public schools while the number of teachers was a little over one million, up from 989,231 in the previous education year.

The education minister said the new action plan would first readjust the education of new teacher graduate candidates so that it is somewhat inclined to be more of an old-school education.

Selçuk said 20,000 new teachers would be appointed by the end of December.

“We are waiting for the parliament to open,” he said.

“We will also prepare a service plan to support our current teachers,” Selçuk added.

The education minister said the ministry is not currently working on changing the curriculum and added, “if there were to be a change in the curriculum, it would only be one-legged.”