Children with special needs receive education in special education and rehabilitation centers paid by the Ministry of National Education.
Although the number of these institutions has increased in recent years, problems frequently come to the fore.
Problems in organizations affect everyone involved.
While the owners of the institution complain about the costs, the parents are worried about the lack of materials and lesson times, and the teachers are not given their full rights, children continue to receive education in this process.
"THE ALLOWANCE INCREASED BY 34 PERCENT AND THE EXPENSE INCREASED AT LEAST 50 PERCENT"
Vahap Işık, the owner of an institution with two branches in Istanbul, underlined that the prices for everything have increased with the pandemic, while expressing that the expectations of working teachers have also increased," "Expense items have increased more than ever before. Life is excruciatingly expensive. Naturally, our friends' expectations for us have also increased. What should they do? These friends of ours are striving for our children with special needs, whose exact numbers are unknown, who were not evicted from their homes in the past, and these children are now visible in both social and academic environments. They are working with all their strength to ensure that our children adapt socially and academically. We are experiencing economic difficulties, they need to feel good economically so that we can work with happier colleagues. Many items such as meals, expenses for free services, salaries, building rents, accounting fees, repairs, invoices, stationery, cleaning, Social Security Institution, and taxes increased above the increase in allowances. There was a 34 percent increase in appropriations, but our expenses increased much more than this rate. We do not have a single item expense with an increase of less than 50 percent. Some of our expenses have increased 3 times, 4 times. We cannot establish an equivalence between incoming and outgoing," he said.
"OUR TEACHERS RECEIVE LOW SALARIES DUE TO THEIR MORE INTENSIVE WORK"
Ceyhun Bozdağ, who is a teacher in an institution and also the Chairman of the Special Education and Rehabilitation Teachers' Association, stated that there are over 420,000 students taking courses in the centers throughout Turkey.
Stating that teachers working in institutions are also faced with many problems, "Educators working in these centers are employed in more intensive shifts and with much lower wages compared to their colleagues in public schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education. In the past years, the wages given to educators have decreased continuously and have fallen to the minimum wage level today. Since our teachers are bound by a fixed-term employment contract, there is no job security, there is concern for the future. Our teachers working in institutions do not have severance pay and retirement bonus. Working hours can reach 10-11 hours, problems such as pressure and mobbing continue in these centers," he said.
"HOW PRODUCTIVE IS THE UNHAPPY TEACHER FOR OUR CHILDREN?"
Stating that their children should be given their rights, Fatma Uyanık, the parent whose children were educated in rehabilitation courses, stated that the solution to the problems is in the hands of the owners of the institution, "One of our problems is the lack of materials. 40 minutes of training time for children is not enough. Why do we lag behind the systems applied abroad? It is not right to blame all the institutions, but even in the institution I go to, we have problems with heating. As parents, we truly want our children's rights. We do not want to be pregnant with the capital at the beginning of rehabilitation courses. If the employees do not get their due, they become unhappy and reluctant, and how efficient is the unhappy teacher for our children?" she asked.