Over 1.7 million students left education in a year in Türkiye

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The school year started in Türkiye on September 12, with 19 million students returning to school.

The start of the school year have also revealed the barriers to the access of children living in poverty to education.

According to the Private Schools Association of Türkiye, the annual cost of a single student in a private school, which includes school fee, meal, stationery and school shuttle varies between 50,000 lira and 180,000 lira (1 US dollar = 18.30 Turkish lira).

While costs for public school vary by province, a student's stationery and clothing expenses at the start of the school years is as high as 2,500 to 3,000 lira.

"Children are hungry all day"

Ömer Yılmaz, head of the Student Parents Association (Veli-Der), told bianet that students' expenses increase in higher grades. "High school students' expenses reach 4,000 lira when schools open."

Also, he said, many students can't but anything from school canteens due to high prices. "Developing children don't eat anything at school. They have breakfast at home in the morning and remain hungry all day."

"If the child is going to eat at school, daily canteen expense reaches 30-40 lira. According to information we received from the Canteen Owners Chamber, the total price of a cup of ayran, a toast sandwich and a bottle of water is 36 lira.

"The situation is much worse in private schools. Because the prices of electricity and natural gas were raised, they reflected that to meal prices."

Students leaving education

Increasing school costs cause especially high school students to leave education, Yılmaz said, noting that over 1.7 million students left formal education in the 2021-2022 school year.

"Because parents have difficulties in meeting the school expenses of their children, they prefer vocational high schools. The children are at school one day a week and they are employed in the company where they do their internships on other days. The child both goes to school and gets paid one-third of the minimum wage.

"Also, because of this situation at vocational schools, children move away from education. Last year, they included nearly 700,000 students in this system, but 200,000 of these students failed their classes. They neither went to school nor to work."

Families with more than one child are forced to make some of their children work, Yılmaz added. "Families have to choose between their children. They can't send all of them to school." (RT/VK)