Eğitim-Bir-Sen education union Secretary General Latif Selvi called for an urgent 40,000 appointments, while ÖĞ-DER Chairman Hamdi Sürücü emphasized that the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Finance and the Presidency should work together to find a solution for the teacher shortage. AES President Mehmet Alper Öğretici , on the other hand, drew attention to the need to save money in education.
Answering questions in a television program he participated in, Minister of National Education Ziya Selçuk stated that there is a shortage of teachers. Selçuk stated that the reason for the low number of appointments is budget constraints. Reacting to Selçuk's statement of budget restriction, educators called for closing the teacher shortage.
FEW APPOINTMENTS DUE TO BUDGET RESTRICTIONS
Reminding the statement of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regarding the teachers waiting for appointment in Hatay in the program he attended, Minister Selçuk said, "There is no general need for a teacher, it was not a statement about the epidemic period, it was a statement about the past period, otherwise we need teachers. It's just a case of having a smaller number of staff this year due to budget constraints. But sometimes there may be some contractions due to budget constraints on the staff, this has been the case this year as well, but this should not be understood as a general need for teachers will no longer exist."
SELVI: “40,000 APPOINTMENTS MUST BE MADE BY FORCING THE BUDGET”
Latif Selvi, Secretary General of Education-Bir-Sen, called for 40 thousand appointments to counter the existing teacher shortage, as stated by Minister of National Education Selçuk, "Based on the OECD average, there is a shortage of at least 100,000 teachers. Currently, this gap is being tried to be closed with the appointment of paid teachers. There is a teacher shortage. The continuation of the education takes place when the teacher and the student come together. Teachers should be recruited by straining the budget. We should focus on retirement-based employment. Retired persons should be replaced. We need to recruit teachers at the level of need. If we continue with these deficits, we will continue to talk about our shortcomings in education. 20,000 teachers were appointed this year. Our friends have legitimate demands. This year, 40 thousand appointments should be made urgently. The teacher shortage, which is the primary problem of our schools after the pandemic, needs to be closed," he said.
“SAVINGS ON MANY SUBJECTS BUT NOT IN EDUCATION”
Reacting to Selçuk's statement about the teachers waiting for appointment, Anatolian Education Union President Mehmet Alper Öğretici said that there is no savings in education, emphasizing that there are hundreds of thousands of teachers waiting for appointment, "Instead of appointing hundreds of thousands of pending teachers who graduated as teachers although there is a shortage of more than one hundred thousand teachers, wage-earners who are employed below the minimum wage and whose more than half are not even a faculty of education graduate cannot be employed. In economic terms, you can save on many things, but education and teaching do not save," he said.
"IN A COUNTRY THERE SHOULD BE NO RESTRICTIONS ON EDUCATION AND HEALTH"
Expressing that the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Finance and the Presidency should work together to solve the teacher shortage, the President of the Conscious Teachers Association (ÖĞ-DER) Hamdi Sürücü, "I don't think that there should be a budget restriction on the teacher shortage, while how many businessmen have been forgiven in taxes in the last 10 years. There are no restrictions on education and health in a country. If things go badly in these two issues, the future of the nation is affected. It is not only the Ministry of National Education's fault, but the Ministry of Finance needs to step in to meet the teacher's need. Because the Ministry of Finance makes the allocation of staff. At this point, the Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Finance and the President should plan and solve this problem together. The quality of education is just as lacking as a missing teacher," he said.