President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's spouse Emine Erdoğan defined family as a "very rich word that blends dozens of meanings and experience" during her speech at the launch of "Family School Project" organized by the Ministry of National Education at the Haliç Congress Center.

 

"We think of not only mother, father and children but also many concepts such as love, compassion, care, solidarity and sharing a common fate when we say family. We learn about all things about life, emotions, national and moral values at home. Family is our most important richness, strength and safe haven. Family does not only organize relationships between the members of the family but also defines social relations. Family concepts changed and transformed in time but continue to keep society together," said Emine Erdoğan.

 

She stated that family institutions was harmed in the rapidly changing world and values of the society are struggling to maintain their importance in the globalization process.

 

"I believe that our project will make families more resilient against possible risks. We have witnessed the impact of erosion in family concepts especially during the pandemic when we all stay at home. The Ministry of National Education detected this risk on time and initiated the Family School Project with the purpose of reinforcing family institutions. The project aims at overcoming the negative impact of pandemic on society and individuals. After completing activities in pilot areas, we have decided to disseminate the family school courses to the entire country. I believe that the project will make families more resilient against possible risks," said Emine Erdoğan.

 

She noted that Türkiye is among the rare countries that resist rapidly increasing harmful impacts of changing lifestyles adding that family culture is the main reason for this success.

 

"I believe that our rich family culture can inspire all humanity. It is our responsibility to reflect this essence of our society to the future generations. Let's embrace our values. We must not forget that strong families formed the immunity system of societies. They protect societies against external effects, ideological attacks and any other harmful attempt," she stressed.

 

Meanwhile, Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer reminded during his speech at the ceremony that the Ministry has founded 16,361 libraries within two months as a part of "No More Schools Without Libraries Project." Noting that the number of books at school libraries increased from 28 million to 70 million, Özer said that this figure will reach 100 million until the end of this year.

 

Minister Özer mentioned that the Ministry has taken another important step and opened science, arts, mathematics and English summer schools for the first time in its history adding that they carried out preschool education campaign with the support of Emine Erdoğan in order to increase equal opportunity in education and improve social skills of students.

 

"Preschool education has the lowest cost but has the highest outcome. We have initiated this project in order to open 3 thousand new kindergartens and 40 thousand new preschool classrooms. We have inaugurated 1,110 kindergartens and 10 thousand new preschool classrooms within two ten months.

 

We are proud to increase the schooling rate of 5 year old children from 78 percent to 93 percent," said Özer.  

 

Özer also gave following information about Environmentally Friendly 1000 Schools Project: "We selected one school from each district. We have founded 1000 environmentally friendly schools that have solar energy systems, rainwater collection units, organic waste recycling systems and zero waste libraries. We aim at transforming all schools to environmentally friendly buildings until the end of 2023. We also carried out a project in order to encourage drop out students to complete their education."

 

Pilot implementation of the Family School project was carried out in İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Samsun, Adana, Şanlıurfa and Erzurum and it will be disseminated to all cities of the country.

 

Reminding that the Ministry has organized 10 different training courses, Minister Özer said, "Our main focus is to introduce former cultural codes to family concepts again. We believe that a society will lose its values if it loses its family structure. We have decided to disseminate the project to all cities of the country and our goal is to reach 1 million families by the end of 2022."

 

Meanwhile, Marmara University Medicine School Academician Prof. Dr. Kemal Sayar highlighted the importance of family and children-parent relationship during his presentation.

 

As a part of Family School Project aiming at reducing the negative impacts of pandemic and supporting social and emotional world of children, the Ministry is providing 10 different training programs namely domestic communication skills, conflict and stress management, safe use of technology, prevention of addiction, social emotional skill development, peer relations, moral development, healthy diet and psychical activities, first aid and environmental awareness to parents.  

 

1,170 teachers attended training programs organized in all 81 cities of the country and became trainers. The project achieved to reach 50 thousand families.