Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

In his speech here, TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that education is the basic building block of a country.

Pointing out that the private sector’s appropriate initiatives in the field of education will increase the quality of universities and contribute to the development of human capital, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “With this vision, we, as TOBB, established the TOBB Türkiye Education Council in 2006. Since then, our council has been acting as a bridge between the private sector and the public sector to increase the quality of education and make it sustainable with its people-oriented approach.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that the council in question approaches each branch of education with a different sensitivity and that they share the problems experienced in the sector with the relevant institutions and follow up on their solutions.

Explaining that the slowdown in cash flow in the market, high inflation and cost increases are challenging them, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “On the other hand, there are practices that lead to unfair competition in our sector. We are constantly trying to keep these and similar problems on the agenda.”

Pointing out that they have built 81 schools in 81 provinces, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “The number of educational facilities we have brought to our country has reached 153. Thanks to the National Contribution to Education Protocol we signed with our Ministry of National Education in 2022, we will build 154 new schools in 154 districts. Thus, the number of educational facilities we will bring to our country will reach 307.”

Stating that education is the only investment that does not make a loss, Hisarcıklıoğlu said: “Again, we started to work together with the public and private sectors in vocational education, the first foundations of which were laid by our Minister. With the Vocational Education Cooperation Protocol we signed with our Ministry, we manage 128 vocational high schools across Türkiye with the support of our Ministry, as TOBB and chambers and exchanges. As the business world, we want to meet the qualified human resources we need from vocational high schools and vocational training centers. With the vision of our Minister, we continue to work non-stop to make vocational education a center of attraction for young people, parents and the business world.”

Hisarcıklıoğlu stated that significant progress has been made in the field of education in Türkiye in recent years and said, “We should not stop here; our main focus in the second century of our Republic should be the quality of education. The main element of the quality of education is the teacher. Effective use of digital environments and skills in the learning process is necessary for integration with an increasingly digitalized world.”

- Minister Yusuf Tekin

Minister of National Education Yusuf Tekin stated that as of the 2023-2024 Academic Year, there are currently 2,403 vocational and technical Anatolian high schools and said, “There are 53 fields and 114 branches in these high schools and when we look at the total, we have 1,092,536 students. In all institutions, 2,660,291 students are currently studying in vocational high schools and Vocational Education Centers (MESEM). This figure is a very big number. If we can evaluate this figure functionally, neither the sector will need personnel in this sense, nor will our children have any concerns about the future. Therefore, I would like to carry the cooperation with you further in order to manage such a large workforce and such a large area.”

Stating that they want to take measures to make it easier for students to choose vocational high schools, Minister of National Education Tekin said: “In this sense, we prefer not to use the concept of intermediate staff in order to make our vocational high schools attractive. We should use other expressions instead. If we do this, we will at least give them a partial attraction. When we look at our vocational high schools, we see that they have very central locations and very beautiful locations in the provinces. If we revise these, we will become a point of attraction for our students.”