WE ARE BUILDING LABOR FORCE SENSITIVE VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

31 May 2021 11:35

The Ministry of National Education has managed an important transition in vocational education in recent years and gives priority to raise human resources that the labor market needs in vocational high schools.
 
Deputy Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer stated that dynamics of the labor market are important in vocational education and vocational and technical high schools give education to labor force required in the labor market adding that, "By its nature, vocational education has to have strong ties with the labor market. But these ties must begin during the education process not only after the graduation."
 
Özer, "We are making strong and active cooperation agreements with sector representatives. We also boost the context of our existing cooperation agreements. Sectors are sharing their experience in every stage of education. This allows us to take steps in building the vocational education system which is stronger and sensitive to the demands of the labor market."
 
"Bursa has a special place in vocational education"
Stressing the importance of Bursa in the transformation in vocational education, Özer stated, "Bursa is one of the strongest centers in the labor market. Sector representatives are producing in many different fields and it is among the cities that has the largest employment capacity. Due to this reason, Bursa has a special place in vocational education."
 
Özer said that there are deep-rooted vocational high schools in the city that have strong tradition such as Tophane Vocational and Technical High School adding that, "We think the nature of these schools are very special. We pay frequent visits to Bursa in order to meet with sector representatives and stakeholders in order to make assessments and take decisions about new steps."
 
Noting that steps taken in Bursa started to yield results, Özer stated, "Students in Bursa show higher tendency to enroll in vocational high schools. Their decision reveals that we took th right steps. Meanwhile, profits of vocational high schools in Bursa showed important increase. Earnings of vocational high schools which was 5.6 million liras in 2017 increased to 20 million liras in 2020 despite the Covid-19 pandemic."
 
Education focusing on local car and micromechanics
Özer stated that the Ministry started to give education in the fields according to the needs of the labor market in Bursa and the local car project TOGG and micromechanics are in these fields.
 
"The first domestic car will be produced in Bursa. We decided to enroll our students in Bursa Automotive Industry Exporters' Union Vocational and Technical High School in order to train qualified workers for the production of the domestic car. Meanwhile, the project initiated at the Tophane Vocational and Technical Anatolia High School in cooperation with All Watch Producer Businessmen Association for providing education in watch production, defense industry, space and aviation and biomedical device technology successfully continues."
 
R&D activities in vocational education
Özer stated that the Ministry also made investments for R&D activities in vocational education and went on to say: "We took important steps in 2019 for carrying out intellectual property rights projects. We founded 43 R&D centers in various different cities of Turkey. These centers mainly focus on patent, useful model, brand, design production and registry. Within this framework, we founded 4 of these centers in Bursa. We inaugurated the new building of the center in Tophane Vocational and Technical Anatolia High School. We allocated 6 million liras in the first six months of 2021 for these centers. Our support will gradually increase. We will develop important projects in order to increase the production capacity of our country."