The Education Ministry's hospital classroom program aiming to expand education services outside schools in all of Türkiye's 81 provinces is set to launch, with meetings for opening the first hospital-affiliated classes beginning Friday in the northwestern province of Bayburt.
As a final step in the project, Rahmi Güney, the ministry's provincial director, met with the executives of Bayburt State Hospital and held meetings about the hospital classes, Ihlas News Agency (IHA) reported Friday.
The aim of the project is to provide education services to children who are hospitalized because of their health problems so that they can continue their compulsory education without interruption, a ministry statement said.
Last month, Education Minister Mahmut Özer underscored in a statement that as a ministry, they are set to establish hospital classrooms, with no public-private distinction, in order to enable students requiring long-term treatment to continue their education.
The minister highlighted that multidimensional and wide-ranging activities are carried out countrywide to ensure equality of opportunity in education, and one of the important activities in this context is the ongoing efforts to ensure that individuals with special educational needs are provided the same access.
Recently, because of the devastating earthquakes that struck the country's southeastern region, Özer also announced during the news conference in Malatya that hospital classes will be opened in all hospitals in the provinces affected by the earthquake by March 1.
Özer, who held a conference regarding the latest situation of schools affected by the earthquake, said: "In these hospital classes, not only our students receiving treatment in hospitals but also the children of our devoted health care workers will be able to benefit from these classes.''
According to the written statement issued by the ministry, the minister on Tuesday visited the first hospital classroom opened in southeastern Malatya province's Training and Research Hospital.
As part of the ministry's effort to maintain education for the students affected by the quakes, the transfer of the students to other regions and provinces was facilitated as well.
''Within the scope of transferring our students from 10 provinces to other provinces, we have transferred 99,853 students,'' Özer shared on his social account.
Following the deadly quakes that claimed over 43,500 lives, education in the earthquake-affected provinces has been paused until March 1. The decision of whether the closure will be extended is expected to be announced by the Education Ministry soon. Meanwhile, the students in 71 other provinces across Türkiye returned to the classrooms on Feb. 20.