President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during his speech at the ceremony that the entire country will share the joy of the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Gaziantep on December 25. President Erdoğan commemorated all martyrs and heroes who sacrificed their lives for the independence and future of their country and noted that liberation of the city should be remembered through the generations.

 

Reminding an old saying as "Charity is like a rain", President Erdoğan stated that charity has been associated with labor and production in Turkish culture.

 

"Your good deeds and services will increase your wealth and productivity. To share with others which is a part of our culture and civilization maintains a balance in the society. I sincerely believe that the salvation of Turkey depends on education and the efforts and works of our educated people. In line with this belief, we always prioritized education since we took the responsibility to govern the country. We allocated the largest part of the budget to education. In addition to public funds, charities and donations allowed us to renew and reinforce the education infrastructure almost in the entire country. Appointment of 714 thousand new teachers allowed us to provide uninterrupted education. Three quarters of existing teachers were appointed during the rule of our governments. Number of universities, which was 76 when we came to power, reached 207 with the new investments in the entire country and the number of academic staff increased from 70 thousand to 180 thousand."

 

Pointing out that students used to go abroad to study in the past and now Turkey is playing host to hundreds of thousands of foreign students every year, President Erdoğan said, "We are taking important steps in vocational education in an effort to respond to the needs of the business world for well-educated and quality labor force. Your charities will make an important contribution to the solution of important issues but also it can be considered as a long term investment that will respond to your needs. With the will of Allah, we will achieve our goals in education in cooperation with our people."

 

Erdoğan noted that the Metropolitan Municipality has allocated 1753 lots for the construction of school buildings and it also organized 12 arts and vocational education courses for the people of the city adding that, "I have visited the children's library established by the municipality. Gaziantep is among the four locations which is in the list of "Green Cities". Meanwhile, Şahinbey Municipality is organizing free courses for children at the 200 youth centers and distributed free tablets and computers during the pandemic. Şehitkamil Municipality has a library for children and 65 kindergarten classes as a part of an education campaign.  

 

President Erdoğan expressed his gratitude to businessmen who vowed to make donations to the construction of 100 school buildings in Gaziantep.

 

Minister Özer noted that he had the privilege to celebrate two good news stories on one day saying that, "Today, 750 disabled teachers were appointed during a ceremony participated by President Erdoğan on the Occasion of the International Day of Disabled Persons. Under the leadership of our President, we have achieved gigantic developments in education in the last 20 years and this period was the time when socioeconomically disadvantaged families benefited most from the investments in education."

 

Stating that Turkey experienced the consolidation of education after 2002, approximately 50 years later than many developed countries, Minister Özer went on to say: "Today, Turkey is a country which managed to increase schooling rate in secondary education from 55 percent to 88 percent. Today, we are a country that increased the schooling rate in higher education from 14 percent to 44 percent. We never sacrificed quality during this growth. The leader of this achievement is our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On behalf of our children and teachers, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our President."

 

Noting that Gaziantep is among the cities which benefited from investments in education in the entire country, Minister Özer said, "There have been gigantic developments in Gaziantep varying from preschool to higher education. At the same time, it is among the cities which managed to reach the OECD average in student per classroom and teacher figures. With the will of Allah, we will continue to make investments in education in Gaziantep with the support of President Erdoğan."

 

He added, "In addition to existing investments planned for 2021, we have allocated 1.5 billion lira for Gaziantep in the last 3 months under the direction of President Erdoğan. We wish that this charity campaign will expand in time and there will no longer be a school infrastructure problem in the city in 2022."