Minister Yusuf Tekin, in his speech at the International Forum of Artificial Intelligence Practices in Education, stated that the new curriculum has faced very superficial and highly ideological criticisms and said, "We need to continue on our way without paying too much attention to these criticisms and without granting them undue significance so that the dreams of Turgut Özal in 1987, Erbakan Hodja in the 1970s, and Nuri Demirağ in the 1940s can come true. In the Century of Türkiye Education Model, most of the things we talked about and will talk about here are mostly included. One of the most criticized aspects in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) reports is the development of our children's digital skills. Through the Century of Türkiye Education Model, we have made very important changes in terms of both digital literacy and the development of digital skills in our children and the implementation of artificial intelligence practices in educational processes.

 

Minister Tekin, stating in a report submitted by the Human Rights Committee to the United Nations General Assembly in 2023 that a framework plan with four principles was established, emphasized that one of these framework plans is "managing digitalization in education" and continued his words as follows: "The United Nations draws attention to the following point: Artificial intelligence and digitalization practices in education may bring about a situation where basic rights and freedoms, human rights, and basic values related to human beings are marginalized and destroyed. With the Century of Türkiye Education Model, we say that we will keep up with technological developments and current developments, but we will never forget that we are human beings, and we will never give up protecting human values. While taking all these steps, we will never put our humanitarian reflexes on the back burner. With the protocol we will sign at the end of this workshop, hopefully these efforts will continue. I hope that this will be the beginning of a process that our children and grandchildren will proudly say, 'I am glad they started it; I am glad they pioneered such a process'."

 

At the forum, which was attended by Deputy Minister of Industry and Technology Zekeriya Çoştu, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Teknopark Istanbul Prof. Dr. Metin Yerebakan, and many educators, the "Cooperation Protocol for the Educube Educational Technologies Initiatives Acceleration Program in the Field of Education Between the Ministry of National Education and Teknopark Istanbul" was signed for entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs in the field of education technologies.

 

On the other hand, Mustafa Canlı, Director General for Innovation and Education Technologies at the Ministry of National Education, emphasized that curricula have been developed for students' mastery of artificial intelligence and artificial intelligence literacy over the last few years.

 

Stating that they have developed elective courses that include artificial intelligence and produced content, Canlı said, "At the same time, we have done a lot of work to improve artificial intelligence literacy for our teachers who will both teach these courses and use artificial intelligence while teaching. We have prepared guides, manuals, and books for them. Through trainings for trainers, we are currently providing regular artificial intelligence trainings to our teachers every week in Türkiye and we bring them together with artificial intelligence tools.