The 2023-2024 academic year rang the bell after the summer vacation for over 20 million students and nearly 1.2 million teachers in primary and secondary education institutions affiliated with the Ministry of National Education (MEB) across the country.

Students, teachers and parents experienced the excitement of the first day of school on Monday morning. Preschoolers, first graders and ninth graders received orientation training last week. Special guidance for students and families starting the fifth grade of middle school this year will last until Sept. 15.

The Ministry of National Education delivered free textbooks and auxiliary resources to students within the scope of preparations for the 2023-2024 academic year, in which 20.48 million students and 1.178 million teachers will participate.

The new academic year started in 74,000 schools and 744,000 classrooms. Out of 45,000 new teachers who joined the education family this year, 21,560 will work in the earthquake-hit southern region.

The ministry made a series of changes in education processes this year. With the legislative regulations, absenteeism conditions in high schools were rearranged, grade repetition was reintroduced, and transitions to open education were made more difficult.

On the other hand, exams in high schools will strictly require in-person attendance. Personal data of students cannot be processed without the explicit consent of the parent, guardian or relevant person, except for the cases stated in Law No. 6698 that enable the processing of personal data without the explicit consent of the person.

On Sunday, the ministry published an umbrella regulation regarding exams held in schools for the first time. The MEB Measurement and Evaluation Regulation stipulated that all exams of courses taught by more than one teacher in schools should be held in written form.

Many innovations, such as the use of open-ended and short-answer questions in written exams to be held by teachers in schools, joint written exams, the implementation of an exam week, and the exams of Turkish language, literature and foreign language courses to measure four language skills, will be implemented with the new term.

The first semester of the new academic year started on Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, and will end on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Due to the earthquakes that occurred in Kahramanmaraş on Feb. 6, 2023 and affected 11 provinces, the 2022-2023 academic year in public and private schools in Adana, Adıyaman, Diyarbakır, Elazığ, Gaziantep, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye and Şanlıurfa provinces were determined as disaster area provinces. The program, which will be prepared by the ministry to eliminate learning losses for the second semester of the academic year, will be implemented with educational activities between Sept. 11 and Oct. 6.

The first-semester midterm break will start on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, and end on Friday, Nov. 17, 2023. The semester break will start on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, and will end on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. The second term will start on Monday, Feb. 5, 2024, and end on Friday, June 14, 2024. The second-semester break will be between Monday, April 8, 2024, and Friday, April 12, 2024. The 2024-2025 academic year will begin on Sept. 9, 2024.

Quake-hit zone

The 2023-2024 academic year started Monday in Malatya, one of the provinces devastated by the "disaster of the century" on Feb. 6. where hundreds of schools were severely damaged. Nearly 153,927 students started education in 410 undamaged and slightly damaged schools. A ceremony was held at Diniye Çalık Primary School to mark the start of Primary Education Week, attended by government officials, teachers, students and parents.

Speaking at the opening of the program, Director of National Education Behçet Bakır shared they were happy to welcome a new academic year, saying: "Although there were some disruptions in education after Feb. 6, we have completed our preparations to the maximum extent by establishing our order again this year and starting the new academic year."

Malatya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Selahattin Gürkan touched on the importance of education and training, adding: "Our teachers also have important duties here. It is not right to confine education to a school or index it to a teacher. The most important factors in education and training are family, environment and then the school and teacher."

National Education Deputy Minister Nazif Yılmaz, on the other hand, said that they experienced a bit of sad excitement in the earthquake zone provinces on Monday when the academic year started, adding: "I believe we will get through this process with the determination of our teachers, parents and students."

Noting that as the Ministry of National Education, their priority in the new academic year is to raise children in line with national and spiritual values, Yılmaz said: "We have made some recommendations to our schools. The first of these is to fight against physical obesity and digital overuse by engaging our students with traditional games as much as possible, as in our current school."

In addition, Malatya Governor Ersin Yazıcı said that all measures have been taken to continue education in Malatya and in other disaster-hit provinces. With the ringing of the first lesson bell, free textbooks were also distributed to the students.