‘Teachers will be vaccinated as of the last week of February’

* News and photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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With the start of the second semester of the 2020-2021 school year today (February 15), face-to-face education has also started in village schools. Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk delivered a speech at the Gödekli Primary School in eastern province of Iğdır on this occasion.

Speaking about the face-to-face education amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Minister Selçuk has stated, "The lists of teachers, especially those who have started giving face-to-face education, have been sent to the Ministry of Health. The vaccination of our teachers with the first dose will start the last week of February."

Sharing information about the schools who are now resuming regular education at village schools, Ziya Selçuk has indicated that around 6 thousand combined classes and 2 thousand 700 kindergartens have started giving full time face-to-face education. "Our other students have also tuned in for distance learning," he has added.

'Schools will open their doors on March 1'

Noting that as of this week, students in all villages across Turkey will start getting education at their schools, Minister Selçuk has said, "On March 1, we will open the doors of our schools to our students for pre-school education, special education and to the 8th and 12th classes preparing for high school and university entrance exams."

"As of today, 49 thousad 361 schools, accounting for 98.2 percent of all schools, have been made ready for face-to-face education with the document of 'My School is Clean'," the Minister has said, adding that the school administrations, through the HES application of the Health Ministry, are informed about the persons who have links to schools and tested positive or detected to be close contacts of positive cases.

Erdoğan announced reopening of schools

After partially reopening schools in late September, Turkey resumed its distance learning education system as of November 20 until January 4.

Remote learning has been continuing through the state broadcaster TRT's Education Information Network (EBA) channels and live courses, while all teachers can carry out live lessons through the EBA.

Amid the increasing number of cases and fatalities, the Ministry announced in December that the face-to-face exams in primary, secondary and high schools scheduled for early January would not not be held.

In a statement on January 17, Minister of Education Ziya Selçuk said, "We have made a policy decision on reopening schools as of February 15."

On February 1, ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey's schools in villages would begin face-to-face education as of February 15 and the preparations would start to resume in-class education on March 1 for the 8th- and 12th-grade students, primary and special education schools.

About COVID-19 vaccination in Turkey

Mass vaccinations began in Turkey on January 14, 2021 after the first batch of 3 million doses of the vaccine developed by China's SinoVac Biotech company arrived in Turkey on December 30, 2020.

According to official ministry figures, Turkey has so far vaccinated more than 3.6 million people, most of them healthcare staff, with the first dose of CoronaVac while the number of people who have so far received the second dose has reached 576 thousand.

COVID-19 in Turkey: 94 daily fatalities

The Ministry of Health announced the latest figures on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Turkey yesterday (February 14).

While the daily number of new cases has been announced by the Ministry as 6,287, the number of patients has been announced as 666.

94 people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 in Turkey in the last 24 hours. 6,910 people have recovered. The number of tests conducted in the last 24 hours has been announced as 104,108.

According to the figures announced till today, 31,516,719 COVID-19 tests have been conducted in Turkey so far. While the total number of cases is 2,586,183, the death toll has reached 27,471 people. (RT/SD)