Minister of National Education Prof. Dr. Mahmut Özer came to Karabük for a series of visits and evaluation meetings. Minister Özer, in his statement during his visit to the governor’s office, said he had a different experience with the removal of the mask requirement for students and teachers in education and training during more than two years. I wish you good luck in your new decision. Your students and teachers were really looking forward to continuing their education without a mask. With the statement made by our President after the meeting of the Health Sciences Council yesterday, the obligation to use masks in closed places has been removed. Today, for the first time, we have lifted the requirement for 18 million students, 1.2 million teachers and other administrative staff to wear masks in the teaching school building. And our students went to their schools very comfortably. They had a great day at their school. It was a very different experience for our students and our teachers. he said.
“It’s not an easy thing to break habits”
Expressing that face-to-face education began on September 6, 2021, Minister Özer emphasized the importance of the national education community and continued as follows:
“It’s not easy to break habits. But our teachers and students have been waiting for this day with great devotion for a long time. Our desire to continue the start of the school year in person at all levels of education from September 6, 2021 has indeed greatly contributed to the completion of this process. Because the national education community is a very large community. A large family of 18 million students and 1.2 million actively involved teachers and other administrators. It is not possible for Turkey to normalize without normalizing the national education community. For this reason, we are very happy to have come to these days, especially since September 6, without interrupting, but respecting the sanitary measures. And for the first time, our country has gained great strength by showing that schools are the safest environments during the Covid-19 epidemic, without any interruption, during this epidemic process. Because tomorrow, when there are problems, when there are other extraordinary conditions, we have seen it now. We can keep our schools open by taking the necessary precautions. In other words, schools are always the places to be opened first and closed last in all extraordinary circumstances. Of course, our teachers were the heroes of the day in making this process a success. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all our teachers for their successful contributions to the process, observing all sanitary rules through their sacrifices and efforts, showing that vaccination rates are well above the community. Our students, who were longing for their school after a year and a half, were also the heroes of this process. Despite their young age, they have come to this day respecting the mask, distance and hygiene. Of course, even if there is no obligation to wear a mask, we will follow the hygiene rules as much as possible from now on. I wish you good luck for the new mandate. Our teachers have not only contributed to this process in the schools. At the same time, they actively cooperated with our citizens in the service of our governors and district governors in loyalty groups in all our provinces. Thank you very much to our Ministry of the Interior. We coordinated the processes together in 922 districts in 81 provinces. We were in Bartın yesterday. Today we are in Karabük, and I am happy to visit these provinces, where I spent many years, one after another. Today we will assess investments in education in our province of Karabük. What can we do by obtaining a ministry in order to bring the current education to a much better point? We will discuss the action we will take as a department. We are very happy to see Karabük becoming an educational city. Our city, which has shown its difference in basic education, secondary education and higher education in recent years. In order to make this beautiful journey much stronger, we as a ministry will continue our support with all the support we need, with good news as we have already provided, I hope.”