7 th local information meetings which are conducted across Turkey under the Education Infrastructure Projects implemented by the Construction and Real Estate Department via the World Bank with the European Union financial support was conducted on Friday, 4 April 2018.
The location of the last event of the Construction and Real Estate Department which arranges the information meeting in the implementation provinces was Mersin for the Education Infrastructure for Resilience Project.
Mr. Fatih Mehmet Oruç, Head of the Construction and Real Estate Department, Mr. Ali İhsan Su, the Governor of Mersin, Mr. Adem Koca, the Provincial Director of Mersin, Mrs. Tamara SULUKHİA, Head of World Bank's Sustainable Development Programme for Turkey and various local authority, expert and managers participated within the event arranged for correctly informing the representatives of all relevel institutions at local level and ensuring the coordination at provincial level.
“Our country has taken a step for protecting the suffering people.”
Mr. Fatih Mehmet Oruç, Ministry of National Education Head of the Construction Work who got the floor started his speech that “Turkey has taken the first step to protect suffering people”. He continued that “These are really important steps for our country and world. The demand for the educational infrastructures has increased after the Syrian migration. We are working to take the required precautions with our projects in the educational dimension”.
Mr. Oruç told that 1,1 million of 3.4 million Syrians Under Temporary Protection are at school- aged. Mr. Oruç expressed that “we are working hard for the integration of children into education and education infrastructure for resilience”. Mr. Fatih Mehmet ORUÇ also expressed that the Ministry of National Education develop new educational projects to meet this demand rapidly for according a basic right such as education for each child without discrimination in our country.
Mr. ORUÇ continued his speech that “the integration of the Syrian Under Temporary Protection who are among the target groups of the project into education should be considered within the perspective of the human right along with decreasing the social risk on the basis of education and social adaptation”.
Mr. Oruç, Head of the Construction Works told that 9 reinforced concrete and 4 prefabricated schools will be constructed within the Project in Mersin and under the Project, the total investment budget for 13 schools to be constructed is approx. 113 Million TL.
Mersin Governor Mr. Ali İhsan SU told that we embraced Syrian brothers in the name of human kindness. We made effort to make them feel comfortable in every sense and we will continue this. Within this framework, education is very important for the Syrians to survive. We enrolled Syrian children in formal education in our province for providing better education and socialization. We do this work both with our own possibilities and the support of the European Union. For this reason, there is no need for the new school. It is important to make them comfortable in the name of human kindness. Within this framework, thank you all who contributed to this.
“We try to be a New Future for the Syrian Childen Under Temporary Protection”.
Mr. Adem Koca, Mersin Provincial Director of National Education recorded that across the province, they try to provide a quality educational service to 390 thousand students in total in 1187 schools with 27 thousand education staff.
Mersin Provincial Directorate of Ministry of National Education try to provide education service not only for the Turkish students but also for thousands of Syrian children and over 200 thousand Syrian youth who come to our province by leaving their country with a different suffering and tragedy both in formal and informal education as per the legal regulation of our Ministry. They also try to be a new future for them.
Mr. Koca told that the need for new classroom will largely meet as a result of enrolling Syrian students in our schools with the completion of these school building and ended his speech that “I extend my thanks to all people and institutions that collaborate and support us notably the officials of Education Infrastructure for Resilience Project.
Tamara SULUKHİA, Head of World Bank's Sustainable Development Programme for Turkey expressed in her presentation that the Ministry of National Education is the leader within the project and the World Bank supports the work.
Mrs. Sulukhia emphasized that 150 Million of 475 Million Euro financed by the European Union will be used under the project through the World Bank. She also told that “This project is a step taken to integrate the Syrian children into the formal education. There are many partners contributing to the project. We, as the World Bank, support the project by constructing 56 reinforced concrete educational facilities in 12 provinces”.
The information meeting moved with the presentation made by the project implementation expert after the rostrum speeches. The event was finalized with responding the queries from the protocol and participants and then taking a souvenir photo.