Minister of National Education Nabi Avcı accompanied President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the 4th International Students Graduation Ceremony held at the ATO Congresium.

Speaking at the ceremony President Erdoğan said with the 4 thousand international students graduating this year the grand total has reached 60 thousand and thanked those who had opened the path for foreign students to receive an education in Turkey.

Erdoğan went on to say “as a person who has contributed somewhat to all this I am enjoying the privilege to have helped. I am especially happy for this because we are the grandchildren of such ancestors. This is how we shouldered this inheritance. I hope we will continue on this path. If you consider that there are still 70 thousand international students at ouır schools Turkey is becoming a major trademark in this area.”

President Erdoğan continued his statement saying “do not forget that the more you donate the more there are alms. I see these services in this perspective. The more you educate people the more blessings you get. Two years ago Turkey used to provide only 45 million dollars to underdeveloped countries in a year now we are providing aid at the tune of 4.5 billion annually. The more you give the more you get. We are now in a better position. This is how I see it. I congratulate all our brothers and sisters who have graduated at a university in Turkey and will be serving in 160 different countries. I also wish success to our brothers and sisters who are still studying at our universities. I want to declare with all sincerity that we will never forget you whether you are a graduate or whether you are still studying in Turkey. Please do not forget us. We will make every effort to sustain the fraternal links between you and us. I see every brother and sister who complete their studies here and go back home as our goodwill envoys. I also regard all our brothers and sisters continuing to receive their education in Turkey as the honorary representatives of their own countries.”

President Erdoğan said as an outcome of globalization all societies have been forced to act around common historical, cultural, economic, social and political values and went on to say “Central Asia, the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and the Caucasus are the geographies where we shared common history and civilization until yesterday. Our nation has led the greatest and most powerful states in the world and yet we are the only ones who did not practice colonialism. Today extending a helping hand to the oppressed and the underdog all over the world is a main part of our foreign policy.”  

“These lands that hosted the oldest educational institutions is making an effort to shoulder the same mission again” said Erdoğan. He explained how in 12 years the number of universities in Turkey went up from 76 to 193 and that the student capacity increased to 800 thousand and the way the dormitories and grant facilities had expanded.

President Erdoğan said one of the most important efforts in this area was the Project for Turkish Grants and said there were 100 thousand applications from 182 countries for these grants.

President Erdoğan talked about the stories of students who had graduated from Turkey visiting Turkish embassies in their respective countries and saying life expectancy is only 45 to 50 in Africa “that is why many students who come from African countries are orphans. The Turkish Grants are not only important in that they provide educational facilities but because they are used to extend a helping hand to orphans.” 

President Erdoğan said there are many young people who have graduated from Turkey and who have been provided with grants who are now leading executives and ministers in their respective countries and said he is very happy to meet such people in the countries he visits.

Thanking everyone for their contributions to the Project on Turkish Grants President Erdoğan added “until now I have given every kind of support for this project to be conducted in a manner that adheres to the principles of our beliefs, our history and our culture and I will continue to do so in the future.”

President Erdoğan said if Turkey grows in strength this is also to the benefit of friendly and brotherly countries as well as the Turkish people and a ray of hope for everyone and went on to say “humanity has suffered great losses with the approach to evaluate geographies with their natural riches and their commercial and strategic importance. Unfortunately even today colonialism and slavery still prevails in different forms using the same approach. It is impossible to sustain a situation where the food wasted in the West can easily feed all the hungry in Africa. It is impossible for us to accept an order where in Central Africa the fish caught in Lake Victoria is sent to western countries and the local people are even denied the remains of those fish.”

“We will make an effort to reach out to every soul” 

Saying his administration does not regard a system where people live in poverty and misery while the underground of their lands are stuffed with oil, gold, diamonds and other valuable minerals as a just system President Erdoğan went on to say “on the one side you have the lands where the age of pension is 70 while on the other side you have the lands where the average life expectancy half that age. This system cannot be sustained.  If when you look at the world from space and you see some places full of light and others in total darkness then there is something wrong about all this. A system where 6 billion people are working for the well being of one billion people is doomed and will sooner or later collapse.”

Saying Turkey is not only a valuable crossroads geographically President Erdoğan went on to say “Turkey is a crossroads between the West and the East in every aspect thus it shoulders a historical responsibility. That is why we say the world is greater than five. All the international institutions led by the United Nations Security Council that are supposed to prevent injustices and inequity have to first reform themselves. It is impossible to conceive that organizations structured on injustice will be able to secure justice around the world.

“I cannot applaud oppression, I can never like the cruel, I cannot insult my past for the sake of the newly arrived”

President Erdoğan read out a verse of the poem by Mehmet Akif Ersoy “I cannot applaud oppression, I can never like the cruel, I cannot insult my past for the sake of the newly arrived” and then commented “this is what we are. We are fulfilling the mission bestowed on us by geography and history and we will continue to do so. We are at the service of humanity and the oppressed all around the world with our Overseas Turks and Relative Communities Chairmanship, with our TİKA, with the Yunus Emre Institute, with our AFAD, with our Red Crescent and with our nongovernmental organizations. We will be striving to reach out to every cry, to the voice of a crying baby, to the calls for help and to every underprivileged soul.

We will continue to help the Muslim in Arakan and the Ezidi in Iraq and all the oppressed irrespective who they are. With the inspiration we received from Yunus Emre and in the words of Mevlana we set one foot in our country while the other foot roams around the world. Thus we have accumulated a great deal of knowledge. We will continue striving to serve with such knowledge.

Erdoğan went on stage to present gifts to the 20 students who graduated gave the Rabia salute. Erdoğan chatted with the students and had photos taken. At the end of the ceremony the students threw their caps in the air and celebrated their graduation.

The ceremony was attended by First Lady Emine Erdoğan, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş, EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Volkan Bozkır, former Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ, Science Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık, Labor and Social Security Minister Faruk Çelik, Environment and Urban Development Minister İdris Güllüce and Youth and Sports Minister Çağatay Kılıç.