Dubbed as Türkiye’s largest high school complex, the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Education Complex opened on Monday in Esenyurt, one of the biggest districts of Istanbul. President Erdoğan inaugurated the complex, which consists of seven high schools with a total capacity of 345 classrooms. The complex will serve thousands of students with its facilities ranging from libraries to labs, workshops, gyms, sports fields, conference halls and dormitories.
Erdoğan had personally laid the foundation for the complex in 2023 and expressed pride in being able to attend its opening. “I truly believe that young people who will be educated here will play important roles in Türkiye’s future, in building a stronger Türkiye,” Erdoğan said. He said the complex would also host Türkiye’s biggest planetarium, sprawling over 350 square meters (around 3,770 square feet).
“Education of young generations who will steer the future is our priority. For over 22 years of our government, we always cared for education. When (the AK Party) was first elected into office, Türkiye’s education budget was a mere TL 7.5 billion. Today, the budget, including this for higher education, exceeds TL 2.1 trillion. Twenty-two years ago, the number of classrooms was only 367,000, and we doubled it. We built more classrooms than those built in 80 years. We also appointed 820,000 teachers; in other words, 80% of teachers working today were assigned in our tenures,” Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan reminded that Türkiye once had up to 70 students per classroom and students or their parents were forced to line up to receive textbooks in the past. “Some classrooms had 80 students when I was at school,” the 70-year-old president said in his speech. “We reduced the number of students per classroom to 23 at primary schools and 22 in middle schools. The number of students per teacher was also decreased to 18 at primary and 14 at middle schools,” he added. He said that the AK Party governments also formed support mechanisms for providing meals, transportation and accommodation to students, and they distributed about 4 billion textbooks for free at schools.
The president also said they improved the state of teachers through a law on the occupation and with a new ranking system, veteran teachers were entitled to higher fees.
“We follow new trends and policies in education and take our steps accordingly. We examined teacher training models of other countries and set up the Academy of National Education to raise our training standards. The Academy will start accepting admissions after an admission exam on July 13,” Erdoğan said. The president pointed out that the accomplishment of Türkiye’s education policies reflected itself in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2023 report. Türkiye was placed second in science among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations for fourth grade students and first among all European countries, according to the study. The study, conducted every four years by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), evaluates the math and science proficiency of fourth and eighth grade students globally. Erdoğan said Türkiye was also among four countries steadily improving its performance in mathematics and sciences according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report of OECD published in 2023.
In his speech, Erdoğan also warned against dangers facing the youth and the government’s efforts to contain them.
“We are determined to protect our children from every bad habit, from smoking and alcohol to drugs,” Erdoğan said as he advised the youth to “absolutely” stay away from those habits. Erdoğan is a staunch teetotaler and is the architect of a comprehensive smoking ban across the country. “We will not allow dealers of the poison to ruin the lives of our youth; we will capture those traitors,” he said, referring to drug dealers.
The president said “digital screen addictions” were also high on their agenda. “We are assessing several regulations, including tighter inspection of social media and age limits to social media use,” Erdoğan said.
The Green Crescent, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) focusing on addiction prevention, recommends a maximum of 60-70 minutes of daily screen time for ages 9-12 and 120 minutes for ages 12 and above. But, official figures show that the majority of children spend up to five hours, especially on social media.
