“We have not allowed education to be put on the back burner in Türkiye”
Addressing the Teachers’ Day event, President Erdoğan said: “We have not allowed education to be put on the back burner, no matter what the economic and political circumstances in Türkiye are. We have always allocated the lion’s share to education from all the budgets prepared during our governments. Our education budget has increased from 10.3 billion Turkish liras in 2002 to 652 billion Turkish liras today.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a speech on the occasion of the Teachers’ Day.
“When we assumed the responsibility to rule the country with our august nation’s decision 21 years ago, we put education first among our priorities,” said President Erdoğan.
“We have not allowed education to be put on the back burner, no matter what the economic and political circumstances in Türkiye are,” stressed the President. “We have always allocated the lion’s share to education from all the budgets prepared during our governments. Our education budget has increased from 10.3 billion Turkish liras in 2002 to 652 billion Turkish liras today.”
Noting that the share set to be allocated to education in the 2024 budget, the parliamentary negotiations of which are currently underway, is planned to be over 1.62 trillion Turkish liras, President Erdoğan said: “We have increased the number of classrooms from 343 thousand to 619 thousand; and the number of schools from 50 thousand to 95 thousand. We have consolidated our teaching cadre with 800 thousand new appointments. We are providing education services to our 19 million students with our 1.203 million teachers, public and private combined, in the 2023-2024 school year.”
“WE HAVE APPOINTED AN AVERAGE OF 40 THOUSAND TEACHERS EVERY YEAR”
Drawing attention to the tangible outcomes of the major investments made in the education infrastructure, President Erdoğan said: “The number of students per classroom was 36 in primary education and 30 in secondary education in 2002. We have reduced it to 23 in primary education and 22 in secondary education. Likewise, the number of students per teacher has dropped from 28 to 18 in primary education and from 28 to 12 in secondary education. With these numbers, we have approached the OECD average in the number of students per classroom and teacher. In the same period, our schooling rate has reached its peak of the Republican history in all the stages of education.”
Stressing that the government has always prioritized education not only in budgets but also in appointments, President Erdoğan stated: “80 percent of the teachers currently working at the public sector have been appointed during our governments. We have appointed an average of 40 thousand teachers every year. In May, we got 45 thousand more teachers united with their students. We will continue to do whatever is necessary within the limits of needs and capabilities in the future. We will make no concessions from our children’s education. We see education as an issue that is of direct concern to our survival and put it above all the political targets. What is more, we are open to every kind of inspiring criticism and guiding proposal on this issue.”
