MP: Turkey is short of classrooms, technical infrastructure to continue education in pandemic

Photo: CHP

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Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Yıldırım Kaya has submitted a motion for a parliamentary inquiry for the reopening of closed village schools.

Stressing that inequality of opportunity has deepened during the coronavirus pandemic, Kaya said many children living in rural areas, villages and poor neighborhoods can't access distance education.

"Students who have a computer and internet connection can't benefit from distance education adequately because of the insufficient structure of the EBA [Education Information Network]," he added.

The Ministry of National Education needs at least 15 billion Turkish lira (~1.9 billion US dollars) of additional budget to continue face-to-face and distance education, said Kaya.

"When the AKP [Justice and Development Party] came to power in 2002, the share of education investments was 17.18 percent whereas it dropped to 4.65 percent in 2020," he said, adding that the share of education investments should be increased to the 2002 level.

After suspending schools in March, the government continued distance education and schools have gradually reopened since late September.

Opposition politicians and teachers' unions have criticized the government for failing to provide all students with access to distance education.

While there are more than 15 million students in public schools, the EBA system has a capacity for only one million students, according to Kaya. "So, what will happen to the 14 million students?"

"Three-and-a-half million students don't have a tablet. AK Party Chair [and President] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he would distribute tablets to 500,000 students. Then what will happen to the three million students?" he further remarked.

Village schools and classroom capacity

The government has shut down 20,000 village schools, which means that children in those villages have to go to city or district schools, according to Kaya. "Education, which is the light of the enlightenment, is not done in villages. You have left our villages for darkness."

"You rented village schools to associations founded by some sects and you don't audit that these associations do," he said, adding that even in Ankara, the capital, there are students who have "transport education."

There are a total of 727,347 classrooms in Turkey and 588,000 of them are in public schools, Kaya noted.

"The average number of students in a classroom in public schools is 26. This number is much higher than 15, which was announced by the Science Board [of the Ministry of Health]," he remarked.

In order to partly meet the need for extra classrooms, the 20,000 closed village schools must be reopened, Kaya further said, adding that 40,000 new teachers should be employed by the education ministry. (RT/VK)