Minister of National Education Nabi Avcı said his Ministry will develop symmetrical projects for children of the European Union countries to inform them about Turkey just as Turkish children are being taught about EU values.

Minister Avcı speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the “Students Are Learning About the EU Project” which is being financed jointly by the European Union funds to create more awareness among Turkish children about the EU “Now I feel there should be a symmetry of this project. Just as Turkish children will learn about European values and the characteristics of European Union we need a symmetrical project that will teach EU children about Turkey because in this prolonged relation of ours we need to know each other much better. With this project we are fulfilling our part of the accord. We will once again explain to our children the European Union and Europe. Yet, we know that even in places where Turks live in Europe, European children do not enough about Turkey. We as Turkey have an obligation to inform these children about our country.”

Thanking everyone for making this project a reality Minister Avcı went on to say: “With this project our children will once again remember they are the inheritors of a multi-nation, multi-factor, multi-religion, multi-ethnicity and multi-lingual historical legacy.”

Unity in diversity 

Minister Avcı referring to the notion of “Unity in Diversity” mentioned in the presentation at the ceremony and which is a slogan of the EU said: “I think this was a question at the exams and the notion of unity in diversity was something that the Council of State (Supreme Court that handles state administrative cases) and especially Department 8 would immediately annul. Our students will learn unity in diversity which was a notion called “Kesret İçinde Vahdet” that was used and kept alive for hundreds of years by the Ottomans. Thus we are starting a project with multiple gains. Let it benefit everyone.

EU will be obliged to welcome Turkey 

Minister Avcı said when the program comes to a conclusion 24 months from now there will be a final program and added “we will give students bicycles, computers, chess sets but the best gain for the children will be they will learn to ask out of the ordinary questions.They will ask two questions. What happened in 1959? We will tell them that in 1959 the Turkish Parliament decided to join the European Union which was then the European Economic Community (EEC). So what happened in 1963? We will tell them that Turkey and the EEC signed the Ankara Treaty. Children today are wonderful. They will subtract 1963 from 2016. Then they will ask us: So what happened in between?” The Minister said “let me give you a hint. My reply is hidden in the poem by Constantinos Cavafy. We loved this journey, we learnt much from it and there is still much to learn. When the day comes we will not ask whether you will admit us to the EU. We will ask ourselves whether we should enter the EU.”

Poem by Constantinos Cavafy (Cannon):

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
 
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
 
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
 
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
 
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. 

The ruling of the Council of State on TEOG

After the ceremony Minister Avcı replied to the questions of journalists. A journalist pointed out that the Council of State had ruled that the application to halt all transfers between high schools without taking into account the base scores received by students from the High School Placement Exams (TEOG) pending its final ruling on the case and asked the minister if the students whose transfers had already been done would be affected Minister Avcı said “those students will not be affected because that is now a right that has been granted before. The ruling of the court is pending the final verdict. If the court makes its final ruling all transfers from then on will be undertaken according to the verdict. We will adhere with the ruling once the final verdict comes out. What has been granted until now is a right that cannot be annulled.