3 million in non-formal education.

PRIMARY EDUCATION

Very positive results in terms of quality and quantity are achieved by the contributions of the Law no 4306 to the Turkish education system and by the services of our Ministry.
In that sense, the enrollment rate, which was 85% in 1997-1998 academic year, increased to 100% in 2001-2002 academic year. For girls, this rate increased from 79% to 97%, and for boys from 91% to 100%.
The number of girls in primary education increased has gone up by 721.000 in the 2001-2002 academic year as compared to 1997-1998. This increase is 18% in the whole of Turkey.
These achievements in rural areas and in the number of girls prove that important steps have been taken in ensuring the continuity of the equality of educational opportunity.
We are planning our educational capital expenses so that priority is given to the education of our youngest population at the age of pre-primary and primary school.
From August 18th 1997, when Law no 4306 became effective, until November 30th 2001,

As per paragraph (F) of provisional article 1 of the Law no 4306, the manner in which all kinds of donations and contributions to education are collected and used is being inspected once every six months by inspectors from our Ministry and from the Ministry of Finance. So far, seven inspections have been performed and the inspection reports have been presented to the members of the Planning and Budgeting Commission of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, of the National Education and Culture, of the Youth and Sports Commission, group chairmen of the political parties and to the public by means of the press. The only ministry that has its accounts scrutinized and explained to the public thus is the Ministry of National Education.
As can be seen, a large part of the income obtained by the Law no 4306 is spent on additional classroom construction in schools, large repairs and Bussed Primary Education.
After the Law no 4306 became effective, a serious investment attempt started in order to meet classroom requirements. As a result, until 1997 about 7000 classrooms were built each year; and in the last five years a total of 103.983 classrooms were built and opened to service, of which,

VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION

The trajectory covered by what has been done to realize the eight-year compulsory primary education, the success attained and the sound foundation have laid a suitable basis for the restructuring of the secondary education system. A great step has been taken concerning the restructuring of the secondary education system by focusing on vocational and technical education, which for many years has been an issue discussed by the National Education Councils and was included in the objectives of development plans.
In order to have the ability to compete with other countries within the free circulation of goods and services in EC countries, to protect the value of our manpower, to increase production in the economical area, to become a country which not only buys and uses but produces and sells, and assuming that compulsory education shall be increased to twelve years, the secondary education system is being restructured, putting special emphasis on vocational and technical education. Law no 4702, which is a framework that enables such restructuring, became effective in July 2001. This Law brings the following innovations:

Thus, it is ensured that;

The Secondary Education Project which is being prepared with great efforts shared by all units in the Ministry of National Education basically aims to make the best use of the

In the academic year 2001-2002, the number of new enrolments to vocational and technical education was 297.000. This number increased 16% overall in Turkey as compared to last year.

FREE BOARDING SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARSHIPS

Another service aimed at providing quality education to primary and secondary school students in rural areas includes boarding schools (YİBO), education with transportation (PIO) and scholarships.
In the year when the compulsory eight-year primary education was introduced, the number of YIBO's and PIO's were 153, but by an increase of 235%, it went up to 513 in 2001-2002, and the boarding capacity went up to 185.889.
In the academic year 2001-2002, 630.000 primary school students were provided with the opportunity to have quality education with daily transportation. The traveling and nutrition costs of the students in Bussed Primary Education are paid by our Ministry.
In the academic year 2001-2002, scholarships have been provided for a total of 106.445 primary and secondary school students, 41.816 of which were girls, 64.629 of which were boys. At the end of 2000, these students were paid 6.304.000 liras per month and this figure was increased to 10.568.000 lira in December 2001. I hope we can make this figure much higher in the new budget.
In addition, 95.000 secondary school students are attending free boarding schools.

We continue trying to spread scholarship services contributing to successful children of financially deprived families.
Besides, preparations are made for free boarding vocational schools so that students graduating from YIBO's and PIO's can attend free boarding schools in secondary education as well.

TECHNOLOGY

Dear Chairman,
Dear Members of Parliament,
We are aiming to achieve in our country a fast development in the areas of information and communication technologies which are of economical and social key importance in the world.
Our national objective and policy in relation to information technology is based on "keeping pace with the information age, to raise people who think universally and act nationally, to become a society of information and technology, to support each level of the education system with technology so as to continuously increase the competitive power of our people and our society".
In this sense, we are making preparations for spreading basic computer training and computer-assisted education, parallel to technological developments, for training operational personnel and for building computer laboratories in schools where none exist.

Within this framework;
" a total of 221 thousand teachers have been trained in the use of computers, and primary education inspectors have had an intense in-service training,
" using the credit received from the World Bank, 3.188 information technology classrooms have been built in 2.802 schools, and tenders have been opened to build classrooms like this and to obtain software in 3.000 more primary schools.

As of today, in primary and secondary schools 117.250 computers are being used for education. This figure does not include the computers obtained by such means as donations, campaigns, schools societies, school-family associations.
Remote education services are being given through "open basic education school, open secondary school education and open vocational and technical school education" for providing equality of educational opportunities for every citizen and for supporting the education given in primary and secondary education institutions, and 715.510 students are making use of such services.
Preparations have been completed to purchase 45 thousand computers to be given to our teachers working in primary schools. Tenders shall take place at the beginning of year 2002. Here, we aim to give the teachers an opportunity to use computer in teachers' rooms.

IN-SERVICE TRAINING

Our Ministry has been organizing in-service training activities in collaboration with related institutions and organizations in order to increase the quality and effectiveness of education. Among these, priority is given to "computer, foreign language, education management, total quality management, time management, change and renovation".
In this context, between January 1st - October 31st 2001 7.134 in-service training activities have been organized in 125 areas. A total of 272.388 administrators and teachers have attended these activities, of which;

TEACHERS

In 2001-2002 academic year 583 thousand teachers, excluding the administrators, work in our education system.
In order to reduce the number of students per teacher and to ensure that teachers have more time for their students and can help them better in their mental, emotional and psychological development, in the last five years a total of 188.544 new teachers have been appointed, of which;

NEW SCHOOL CONCEPT

Developing technology and the opportunities it brought along have increased the quality of education as well as changed the former concept of schools. Thus, we aim to use our schools, which have been renewed in terms of both architecture, administrative approaches and opportunities, as a social center open to the surroundings, where social, cultural and sports activities are held.
While the school, integrated within its surroundings, becomes an information center, cooperation between universities and schools in every area is being encouraged. Thus, a democratic management structure, and high quality and continuity in education shall be achieved.

EDUCATION PROGRAMS AND COURSE BOOKS

When preparing education and training programs, an education policy is followed to ensure that the students are raised as highly skilful individuals who have improved thinking, perceiving and problem solving abilities, are open to universal values and new ideas, have a strong national culture, personal feelings of responsibility and social sensitivity, inclined to production of technology and science. To this end, the development of programs is based on the principle of serving to prepare several education programs parallel to the individual and national requirements, to ensure that individuals can use technology and have civil awareness and be equipped with modern information and technology, and to raise people who are at peace with themselves, their families and societies, have adapted to the world, have values and principles, are good individuals and good citizens.
New course books are prepared with a student-centered approach, away from memorizing methods and targeted at active learning.
In 2001-2002 academic year, for the primary and secondary schools, a total of 21.826.190 course books in 550 different subjects published by our Ministry have been distributed to our students, 16.064.500 of them have been reprinted and 5.761.690 transferred from 2000-2001 academic year.
Also in 2001-2002 academic year, 9.956.594 course books have been distributed free of charge to the primary school students in the financially deprived rural families and to the primary and secondary school students who have survived the earthquake. These books shall be collected back at the end of the year to be redistributed to the other students the following year. This practice shall be continued as long as the course programs do not change.
The demand from the students' families about the course books not being changed so frequently has been strictly followed by our Ministry for the last four years. The Ministry has distributed about 10 million books free of charge, gave them on loan to be collected back at the end of the year and redistributed them the following year to other students. This will go on as such and books will not change as long as the program is left intact.

ADAPTATION TO THE EUROPEAN UNION

Studies are being made for the adaptation of the Turkish Education System to the education systems of the countries of the European Union.
Stipulated by the place of our country in the world conjuncture, the educational work performed at the international level, the development plans and the measures included in the national program, it is unavoidable for us to adapt our education system to education system and norms in the European Union.
In this context;

.

Dear Chairman,
Dear Members of Parliament,
Economic changes create new sectors and professional areas, and this in return necessitates that the population be equipped with the knowledge and skills required by these new sectors and professional areas. Also, in the process of joining the EU, the exports of production and industry in the economy has risen as a new factor. Therefore, it has become essential that the service and industrial sectors employ manpower that can live up to European standards.
Thus; the employment measures taken at national, regional and local levels include;

BUDGET

Dear Chairman,
Dear Members of Parliament,
The Law regulating the Compulsory Eight-Year Education is a reform law that will take the efforts achieved by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in our country's educational system in the Revolution of the Republic much further. This Law, also supported by civil social organizations, has given excitement to our education team and to the public. However, this excitement was not reflected in the budget laws of our country.

The biggest supporter of the Compulsory Education Law issued in 1997 should doubtlessly be the budgets of the Ministry of National Education in the following years. But starting from 1998, the share of the budget of the Ministry of National Education in the general budget was gradually reduced, and it became 8.40%, 7.85%, 7.13%, 8.36%, 7.60% respectively in the following years. This decreasing trend clearly shows that the excitement of the education reform was not reflected in our country's budget.
Each year about 1 million 300 thousand new students join our education system in primary schools. Besides rapid population growth and economical problems, the problem of domestic immigration makes it impossible to plan the capital expenses to be made in our national education. In spite of this, since no external factors were considered when identifying the places to invest in school and classroom construction, the number of students per classroom was brought down to about 30, except for those cities with a high ratio of immigrants, and a slight reduction was also achieved in other cities where immigration is involved. Of course, when considering the targets in front of our national education system, all these developments are not enough to meet the objectives because we want to do better.
In the draft budget for year 2002, a total allocation of 7 quadrillion 461 trillion liras is given to the Ministry of National Education, which is distributed as follows;

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