Education Ministry

The school year will officially begin on Thursday with state primary and secondary schools short of up to 12,000 teachers.

Students starting first grade, fifth grade and preschool classes began the school year yesterday, a week before the rest of Turkey’s students.

Six children between the ages of seven and 10 have been told by school officials to carry textbook boxes to school in the resort town of Bodrum in western Turkey, raising claims of child labor.

Finance Ministry officials are pressing the Education Ministry to cut costs after it emerged that a program for merging university and technical college departments failed to save 68 million euros this year, in line with budget targets, Kathimerini has learned.

 Education, Administrative Reform ministry sources say pledges will be honored

Government officials on Thursday sought to play down a rift between Education Minister Andreas Loverdos and Administrative Development Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the possible firing of administrative staff at universities as part of a civil service overhaul demanded by the troika.

Turkey’s secondary education examination row has deepened, amid reports that thousands of students, including some non-Muslims, have been placed in Islamic vocational schools for the upcoming school year.

A total of 178,458 people have failed to complete their tertiary education studies but are still registered as students, the Education Ministry said on Friday.

According to the ministry, 139,175 students are registered at the country’s universities. Of these, 129,008 are to be immediately scrubbed from the registers.

Children at Greek primary schools are to receive training on driver etiquette and road safety from this year, the Education Ministry has announced.

The lessons will be offered to children in the 3rd and 4th grades, said Deputy Education Minister Alexandros Dermetzopoulos. They will include visual material and practical teaching that will take place in schoolyards.

One-third of Bulgarian high school graduates with top marks at the closing exams would prefer to study at foreign universities, Novinite.bg has reported.

According to Education Ministry data, more than 12,000 Bulgarian high-school graduates coming mostly from top-notch schools in the country would begin university studies abroad next year.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has suggested that Turkey’s education policy was being designed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son, Bilal Erdoğan, in close coordination with five Islamist-leaning foundations.