Minister of National Mahmut Özer made following comments about the "Türkiye's Century in Education" leaflet that includes data concerning assessment of projects and campaigns carried out in 2022 and goals set for 2023:
"While closing the year 2022 and heading for 2023, we are happy to achieve and even went beyond all goals we set for this year.
We set the goal to inaugurate 3,000 new kindergartens. We have doubled the goal and established 6,004 kindergarten capacities. Schooling rate of five year old children reached 99 percent and it will reach 100 percent in 2023. For the first time in the history of the republic, schooling rates exceeded 95 percent not only among five year old children but also in all levels of education. We have turned vocational education centers into an appealing mechanism as we consider these centers as an important instrument in decreasing young unemployment figures in Türkiye. Within a year, the number of apprentices and foremen enrolled in these centers increased by 7 times and reached 1 million and 200 thousand. Our goal was 1 million students. We have increased accessibility to education from preschool to lifelong learning institutions. We have taken firm steps in order to maintain equal opportunity in education.
It is clear that this achievement is the result of giant investments made in education in the last 20 years under the leadership of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Our Ministry continues to take multi-dimensional steps in order to reinforce equal opportunity in education, improve vocational education and support professional development of teachers.
Our achievements gave us the strength to raise the bar.
In 2023, we will increase the schooling rate of three year old children to 50 percent, the schooling rate of four year old children will reach 70 percent and schooling rate of five year old children will be 100 percent. Number of students enrolled in vocational education centers and quality human resources will also increase. For the first time in the history of our Ministry, we distributed 160 million free supplementary sources in addition to free textbooks to students. In 2023, the number of free supplementary sources will reach 200 million. We closed down 2,200 village schools into village public centers. In 2023, there will be no other closed down village schools. We will provide free meals to 5 million students in 2023. We improved the opportunities at schools by completing 1,000 Schools in Vocational Education, 10,000 Schools in Basic Education and 10,000 Schools in Secondary Education will be implemented in 2023. We will carry our education targets mentioned in the Türkiye's Century to a higher level."