EGEMEN BAGIS ISSUES A MESSAGE FOR TEACHERS’ DAY

Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis delivered a written message for the 24th of November, Teachers’ Day. 

Minister Bagis delivered the following in the message:

As the son of an educationist father, I would like to express my respect for all our teachers on the occasion of such a significant day and celebrate their Teachers’ Day.

Teachers are meritorious for us, just like our mothers and fathers. Regardless of our positions, we always remember our teachers with gratitude for their teachings. We always cherish the love and gratitude that we feel for them.

Teachers are highly respected around the world but in our culture and civilization they are even more respected. We are the members of a civilization that represents the perception of “be the slave of anyone who teaches you even a single letter of the alphabet”.

We even remember our statesmen who left a mark on the world history with their teachers who raised them. We remember Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror with Akşemseddin, and Osman Ghazi with Sheikh Edebali and we express our great respect in the spiritual presence of them.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of our Republic, by stating that “Teachers: The new generation will be your devotion”, laid the emphasis primarily on our culture and civilization.

As always expressed by our Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, teachers have a very important role in raising children who are developed in moral and cultural terms and as free people who read, think, apply and conclude.

In this respect, since the first day of our Government, we have identified education as the area of first priority with the aim of ensuring the objective of going beyond the level of contemporary civilizations. It is very meaningful that education has ranked first among the budget items during the ruling of our Government. Existence of a university in every city in Turkey, elimination of the classroom shortage in a fast manner, distribution of course materials free of charge, scholarship opportunities, innovations in the curriculum and the system, technological advancements and accordingly, FATİH Project (the Movement to Increase Opportunities and Technology) are only some of the revolutionary steps taken during the ruling of our Government.

The educated, dynamic and young population, in the hands of skilled teachers, has become the greatest power of Turkey in order to attain the objective of going beyond the level of contemporary civilizations. We have been struggling to eliminate all obstacles in order to realize such objective of our teachers. We have been attaching importance to carrying out the EU process- together with the young people and teachers- which will carry Turkey beyond the level of contemporary civilizations.

I would like to celebrate Teachers’ Day of all our teachers who are performing this divine task deservedly by devoting themselves in all over the world and throughout Turkey, and I would like to express my gratitude to all my teachers who contributed their efforts to me.