Minister Özer reminded that the Ministry of National Education has initiated the "No More School Without Libraries Project" on October 26, 2021 under the auspices of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's spouse Emine Erdoğan in order to reduce success differences between schools and maintain equal opportunities in education adding that, "As of December 31, 2021, we have founded new libraries in 16,361 schools and there are no longer schools without libraries in Türkiye. Within the framework of this project, we have allocated 222 million liras for the establishment of libraries in every school in the country, modernization of existing libraries, enrichment of library contents and innovations."

 

Minister Özer noted that there were 28 million and 677 thousand books at school libraries before the project and reminded that their goal was to increase the number of books at school libraries to 100 million until the end of 2022.

 

"We are happy to achieve our goal in advance in this project, like we did in our other projects. As of today, the number of books at school libraries increased by 260 percent and exceeded 103 million. This success provided our children the opportunity to reach more and quality books," said Özer.

 

Stressing that the Ministry will continue to found new libraries, modernize existing libraries and enrich content of libraries, Özer shared following information about the number of books at school libraries;

 

"Number of books at kindergarten libraries is 3 million 355 thousand and 113; number of books at primary schools is 68 million 985 thousand and 198; number of books at secondary schools is 30 million 834 thousand and 250, in other words, total number of books at school libraries reached 103 million 174 thousand and 561."

 

Minister Özer reminded that they also founded 1325 libraries from recycled products as a part of "Zero Waste Project" which was implemented in an effort to raise awareness about the environment and recycling.